


Life Goes On

by SnippitySnap, SouthernKittyGal



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: AU, Billford - Freeform, Ford it a grumpy old man, M/M, Minor Character Death, nerdy fordy, small bill, tags will be added as we go along
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-05 12:41:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5375558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnippitySnap/pseuds/SnippitySnap, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernKittyGal/pseuds/SouthernKittyGal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost everything settles after Weirdmaggedon, but not between tiny Bill and Stanford.<br/>Collaboration with Snippitysnap (gentalmanbill on tumblr)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Back to the way things should be

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic both me and Snippity Snap (gentalmanbill on tumblr) collaborated on, wrote together. For the month of December I'm MerryKittyGal on tumblr (otherwise I'm just SouthernKittyGal).  
> Hope yall like it! ^u^

 

The last three weeks had been a dull and forgettable blur since the catastrophic events that had occurred when Bill was finally able to unleash his destructive plans on the Pines’ universe. Ultimately, said events had quickly been halted and Bill had been defeated, a favourable outcome, to say the least, for the town that had already begun to repair the damage caused.

Dipper and Mabel had already gone back home after a rather emotional goodbye with their Grunkles and friends. Stanford had, reluctantly, allowed Stanley to continue his tourist business under the promise that he wouldn’t let it interfere with his research .Leaving him and Stanley as the shacks only tenants.

Well, at least as far as willing ones went.

“You know you can’t keep me here forever, Sixer! A thin layer of… _not glass… um_ … some kind of polymer won’t be able to withstand me for long! “

Despite having been forcefully stripped of all his so called ‘infinite’ powers, Bill seemed to have still retained one; his irritating persistence. Sure, three weeks ago he had been a godlike creature with more knowledge than Ford could ever hope to obtain. Somehow, though,  all the knowledge in the universe didn’t seem to tip Bill off that his continued pursuit of freedom was fruitless. Considering it all, you’d think that someone like him would get the hint that he wasn’t being listened to after spending such a long time stuck in a jar on a high shelf being completely ignored, but no.

Maybe the process of taking his abilities had scrambled his brain a little bit, or maybe Bill was just in denial about all this in a vain hope of keeping whatever small amount of dignity he had still alive.

Either way, it was annoying.

The yellow triangle glared down from the shelf he’d been placed on, sitting down in his tightly-lidded jar. He was situated between some of the other creatures Stanford currently had in his possession, only they understandably made a point of sticking to the sides of their jars, trying to get far away from Bill and his loud voice. Stanford would hate having to be in their place, so close to Bill, too.

Stanford simply buried his nose deeper into his work, continuing to scribble down rough  notes and observations he could remember from the accurately titled “Weirdmageddon.” He started muttering aloud, then, in an attempt to better concentrate on his work and ignore the sound of Bill’s shouts. Giving the little triangle the satisfaction of a response, or even a speck of acknowledgement  wasn’t something Stanford planned to do. “So if atomic structure manipulates when…”

“Sixer… _Sixer_... HEY! Stop ignoring me! It’s rude to ignore your enemy when he’s trying to antagonize you!” Hissed the triangle as he purposefully cut off Ford’s trail of thought, lightly banging his little hands on the side of his prison.

This was getting old. Stanford was always on the verge of losing his mind at Bill’s pestering. Stanford just couldn’t win here, could he? He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go before grabbing the demon and stuffing him in a deep, dark closet just to have some peace and quiet. Only that could lead to unfavorable consequences, no doubt making Bill behave worse than he already did.

However, it usually died down when Bill grew bored. Which, luckily for Stanford, seemed to be the case now as Bill fell mostly silent, crossing his little black arms and looking away from him. Stanford was always warily grateful for the quiet that consumed the lab, such as now. He scratched at his hair before resting his chin in his hand, cognac brown eyes peering through thick lenses down at his work.

_Tap._

_Tap, tap._ Ford kept working, focus wavering briefly.

_Tap, tap, tap._

_Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap._ The sound of a small hand against glass was nearly impossible to ignore now. Stanford gave in just a little to it, murmuring, “You can keep making noise, Bill, but it’s not going to affect me.”

The tapping continued insistently while Bill replied in a sarcastic manner, “Noise, what noise? I’m not doing anything here, Fordsy. I’m just thinking about the cruel reality of life.”

Stanford spared Bill a vaguely pitying look before returning to his work with a cool, “So be it, then.” As much as he’d like to feel bad for Bill, empathizing with him in his weakened and powerless state, it was an understatement to say Bill hadn’t had this coming for all the... terrible, horrible things he’d done in the past. And not only to Ford personally, but everyone in Gravity Falls.

This was justice, wasn’t it? Yes… It seemed like an equal punishment for what Bill had done… But then why did Stanford feel so guilty?

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind with a shake of the head as he remembered how things had ended last time he’d felt like this, felt this pity. No, he wouldn’t allow himself to make that same idiotic mistake again. Just the thought of Bill laughing in his face after tricking him was enough to make his stomach turn unpleasantly.

Bill fell silent for a moment after this, as if considering something for a long moment before speaking up again in a much softer tone. ”I’m powerless, you know, all letting me out would do is allow us to spend some quality time together just like we used to, wouldn’t you like that, Fords-?”

Ford interrupted him as he slammed his book shut, a wash of all-too familiar hurt and bad memories crossing his mind. He felt tense, heart aching faintly, and so he took a deep breath to try and settle himself. He was above this. He refused to give Bill the reaction that he wanted, no matter how much he’d like to get up and give the annoying triangle a piece of his mind. He proceeded to stand up, taking his book with him as he left to somewhere quieter, for the sake of his own sanity. Leaving Bill alone in the room, the door closed behind Stanford with a metallic clang. He’d go do some checking in on how the vibrant and weird residents were doing, check that they weren’t having any problems rebuilding their homes or whatever. It would at least be something to take his mind off all this.

* * *

 

Bill watched silently as Ford left rather suddenly, eye curving upwards in a rather devious manner as he patted himself on the back for a job well done. It was important to reward one’s self to help keep moral up after all, and damn it, even if he didn’t have the ability to summon a opera choir of heads to sing himself a well done anymore, this was still better than nothing.

Now that Stanford had left he could finally try out his idea to escape.

It had occurred to Bill a few hours ago after he’d finished brooding over his recent, devastating loss, not to mention the embarrassment of losing in front of his crew. Where’d he go wrong? Well, first, there was the surprise with the bubble and not being able to leave the damn town, and then there was the fact that his powers weren’t so unlimited. The next thing he knew, he was rather painfully being pulled apart brick by brick as his so called ‘friends’ hightailed it outta there. Gah! The memory alone made him shudder. But that was off topic. He’d realized that Ford, while being rather smart by human standards, still continued to make the simple mistake of leaving  important things in stupid places, like the rift, for example, or like setting Bill in a jar at the edge of a shelf.

This made the next course of action; using his now tiny body to push the jar he was in off the shelf, thus breaking it and allowing him to go free. From there? Well, he knew enough ways to get in contact with people from his world so he wasn’t worried.

He’d get out of this just like he always did.

He was _Bill Cipher_ after all, master of the mind and the host of some of the best damn parties in the multiverse!

Using the tiny amount of moving space he had in the flask, Bill began shoving his whole body against the glass. Slowly but surely, the jar inched forwards from where it originally rested.

As the jar inched close enough to the edge to allow Bill to get a better view of exactly how high up he was, the thought that he might get hurt briefly crossed his mind. Could he even get hurt? Wounds caused by solid objects had never exactly been a problem for him before, due to his immensely helpful ability to simply alter the physicality of his body however he wanted. So, considering he no longer had any powers, there was a possibility that the moment he hit the floor he’d shatter like a sheet of triangular shaped glass.

And presumably die…

…

…Oh well, nobody ever got anywhere playing it safe like a coward, now _did they?!_ HA! Besides, the thought of dying doing something seemingly stupid and crazy instead of rotting away in a jar sounded far more appealing. So Bill continued, doing his best to ignore the dull pain throwing his body against the side of his jar caused.

This jar was giving up a pretty good fight, he’d give it that, managing to possibly bruise the arm and side of a demon. But he wasn’t going to let some man-made object stand in the way of freedom. He'd already been beaten once while in this lowlife dimension, he refused to suffer the same humiliation again, especially from an inanimate object. That would just be rubbing salt in the wound.

Eventually, the jar hung over the edge, teetering a little as if to give Bill the opportunity to chicken out. He could just go back to thinking up clever things to shout at Stanford when he came back, like Bill had been originally doing before coming up with this not-so-thought out idea. Was possible death really worth it when he could at least spend the next thirty years tormenting his favorite human? Heck, if he waited Ford might even lower him to a much more preferable height or just let him go.

He didn’t really end up having a choice in the end.The jar decided for him as it leaned forward one final time before toppling.

For a brief moment while falling, Bill was able to reflect on his life; his struggles, his hardships, his dreams. He never got to corrupt Ford and make him some kind of cute demon butler to serve him for all eternity like he’d always dreamed. In the end, if he was being brutally honest, he’d always thought there’d be some stronger demon that’d finish him off in a battle for territory. He never figured that the cause of his demise would be gravity. Oh well, life was full of surprises after all.

Before he had time to ponder anything else the jar hit the ground and proceeded to smash into a varying range of big and small glass shards everywhere.

The jar’s resounding _crash!_ it just barely registered in his mind. Bill’s vision went black and his thoughts stopped.

* * *

 

Stanford returned about thirty minutes later, being greeted by the sight of broken glass covering the floor of his lab, a small little demon lying in the middle of the mess. Then he saw Bill wasn’t moving.

He stood there silently for a moment as he allowed his eyes to briefly assess the situation that must have unfolded while he’d been out trying to walk off his frustration. He kind of half expected for Bill to just rise up into the air laughing at him for being such a fool for putting him in a breakable jar on top of a shelf. But no, the dorito seemed to either be unconscious or… … _dead._

Hesitantly, Stanford moved over and gently picked him up, looking him over more closely for any signs of life until he noticed one of Bill’s black hands twitch. Okay, he was just unconscious. Stanford felt a small tinge of relief swell to life inside him. He didn’t fully understand why; Bill was a tyrannical being. He should be happy if Bill were to die, right? But despite this, and through the conflicted emotions he held towards the demon, that small tidbit of happy relief was simply _there_ , and that fact bugged him. Yeah, he and Bill had been friends once but, he’d betrayed him, used him. So why? Why did he give a care at all?

Momentarily he debated simply stuffing the increasingly annoying demon into a smaller jar, then locking him in Stanley’s safe. He wouldn’t be able to get out of that after all, to Ford's knowledge anyway. Heck, he wouldn’t have to deal with Bill bothering him all the time too. Logically speaking, this was a pretty great plan.

But……

Stanford gently cleared his throat before glancing down at the now helpless Bill. No, it wouldn’t be right to do that. Bill was one of the biggest jerks he’d ever met, sure, but it didn’t mean Ford needed to stoop to his level and trap Bill in a small space for a long period of time without light. No, it felt like by doing that he’d just… be proving what Bill said about him being ‘ _one of his freaks_ ’ correct. And God forbid, he’d rather shoot himself in the foot than do that.

He gingerly placed the unconscious demon in his pocket, allowing himself for a brief moment to appreciate the rare silence now present in the room before he began clearing up Bill’s mess.


	2. So we have a deal then?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill causes more trouble for poor Stanford  
> Collaboration between Snippitysnap (gentalmanbill on Tumblr) and SouternKittyGal(MerryKitty gal on Tumblr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be perfectly honest the response the the last chapters been overwhelmingly more positive than I first expected (like hot dang people like an idea this much that may or may not have been come up randomly as like a 'oh hey wouldn't this be cute').  
> So I'm gonna use this as a chance to say 'thank you for liking this silly little idea that somewhere along the line of development just became me and my co-writer merrykittygal enjoying ourselves a little to much'
> 
> -Snippitysnap

_Stanford hadn’t given a lot of thought before summoning the entity the walls of the caves spoke about. He had no other place to turn for answers. His research was hitting dead end after dead end in an endless cycle of failures. Simply put, Stanford Pines had run out of options. He needed to produce results here or else the grant money he was getting was sure to dry up fast._

_So he stood before the summoning spell in the cave, holding a torch and rolling the idea back and forth in his head undecidedly. His thoughts, his logic, pointed out that this was the most reliable place to turn for answers. Whatever being was pictured in these caves was sure to have the answers he was seeking. But a nagging feeling inside screamed he shouldn’t do this, that this was a terrible idea. He didn’t know anything about this creature! Contacting an all-powerful being without knowledge of its behavior and interests sounded exceptionally ignorant. But then again… Something whispered to him. In his heart he felt it, a soft, quiet feeling that murmured it would be okay in the end, to go for it._

_Swallowing back his doubts, Stanford took a deep breath and spoke the summoning spell on the cave walls._

_And then he waited._

_And waited._

_…Nothing appeared to be happening. Sheepishly, he glanced around the room a moment before re-examining the spell carved into the cave’s wall, his fingers dragged over the writing as he checked to see that he’d spoken it correctly, muttering them lowly to himself. He was pretty sure he had said it right. Maybe this so called “all-knowing” being was simply a made-up legend. It had seemed too good to be true after all, a being with all the answers in the world couldn’t possible actually exist, right?_

_He felt a tad of disappointment swell in him, and then grow. It was just a fake myth. Of course there wasn’t some god-like being that could save him, and even if it could, why would it want to? He ran a hand over his face and pressed his head against the cave wall, muttering, “Please…” He didn’t know who or what he was quietly begging to, but he just wanted some help, or at least a sign pointing him in the right direction._

_He pressed a hand against the cave, over the triangular figure, staring at it before he started to leave._

_It was at that moment, however, that his train of thought was brought to a sudden halt as his surroundings were suddenly consumed by darkness, leaving him standing alone in a seemingly empty space._

_He began to panic a little, feeling around him as he tried to find the walls of the cavern that had been present just a second ago. This had been dumb. He’d summoned something alright, and judging from what he was seeing now it was obviously something he shouldn’t have messed with. What if it was mad at him for summoning it so rudely? The words written on the walls did say not to summon it after all, maybe it didn’t like being summoned._

_Before he had any more time to ponder over how royally screwed he was, a loud, high-pitched voice pierced the air. There was a certain confidence coming from it that one would expect from some kind of political leader, mixed in with a sort of smugness only a teenager could have._

_“Well, well, well! Stanford Pines! And here I was starting to wonder if you were going to come to me at all!”_

 

 

Stanford took a deep breath as he came around, blinking open deep brown eyes and staring out at nothing for a long moment. He shifted slowly and then stretched in an attempt to try and shake off the sleep that currently clouded his mind. Right, he’d been having a nightmare, hadn’t he…? He sat up slowly with a yawn, gears in his head starting to turn as he remembered the demon he’d left in his pocket. Ford pulled the fabric wide so he could peek in, slowly raising an intrigued eyebrow as his mouth twitched a little with threat of a smile.

Bill was all curled up, small hands grasping some of the fabric and eye closed in a peaceful sleep as his bricks expanded and retracted with each soft, deep breath. How curious, a being made of pure energy needed to breathe? Or was it simple something else that looked like breathing? Stanford made a point of noting it down for future reference before glancing down again at Bill, mind beginning to fill with other questions.

Stanford reached down, a single finger gently poking one of Bill’s sides. He was taken by surprise when the little triangle almost immediately leaned into the touch, tiny hands abandoning the cloth to instead cling to Ford’s finger like a baby. Odd. As far as Stanford had previously been aware, Bill was of an unimaginably old age spanning back prior to humanity’s existence. Was it possible he was still a child?

No, of course not. This was probably just some ploy to try and humanize himself to Stanford. Honestly, this was a being capable of untold destruction. There was no way on earth he’d act like this without some sort of reason behind it.

…

Or the demon was just asleep and currently unaware of his behaviour.

Yeah, that sounded far more likely.

Stanford really needed to try and relax a little more, stressing out like this really wasn’t good for his health. Bill was powerless now, and sure, he’d managed to get out of the jar he’d previously been placed in, but what was he gonna do now? Try and beat him up with his little black fists? It was unlikely. The worst he could do was try and get in contact with currently missing ‘groupies’ who were still wandering around somewhere, trying to keep away from Stanford like their lives depended on it. And for good reason, too. Ford had every intention of finding them and either stripping them of their powers like he had done to Bill, or simply shooting them full of holes. Whichever worked best. It was just a matter of finding them now.

“Hmmm… Where'd all the party stuff go…? …Why's it so dark, did the world end already?”

Stanford tensed briefly at the quiet voice that sounded before feeling something move inside his pocket. Right, Bill must have just woke up.

He widened his pocket again, shedding some light on the little triangle and a smile twitching at his lips as he withdrew his finger from his pocket. His smile soon faded into a frown, tone slightly annoyed as he remembered the half hour he’d spent cleaning up glass, “It’s about time you got up. You were out for a while there.”

For a moment, Bill looked slightly confused, eyes glancing around at his surroundings for a moment before his eye focused on Ford and narrowed. Bill was silent then, as if he were taking a moment to try and think of something insulting to say before he simply starting laughing, ”My, my, don’t tell me you're going soft on me, Fordsy,” Bill sneered before continuing, ”Not that I’m complaining, your smelly pocket is a major improvement from the easily breakable perspex jar you had me in.”

Stanford felt his eye twitch at the nickname ‘Fordsy.’ He hated it. He despised it. It was too familiar, brought back too many memories. The rest of Bill’s passive aggressive mockery only did more to irritate him, his previous idea resurfacing as the idea of sticking it to Bill and putting him somewhere he couldn’t realistically hope to escape from. But he was quick to cast aside the thought again, instead trying to keep his cool, “I’m not going soft on you, I simply don’t have another jar to place you in, so I figured putting you in my pocket would be the next best thing.”

Bill stared up at him a long moment before giving a snorting noise, looking aside. It was hard to tell what was going through the triangle’s head as he sat there silently for a moment, eye narrowing before glancing up at him again,”Yes, I suppose it is. Do you know what would be even better? Letting me out the pocket and into the world where I can walk around happily,” He suggested in a rather sly manner, eye curving upwards in a sort of smile.

The only response Ford gave was a rather unamused, flat look.

“Right, let me rephrase that, if you let me have free roam of the house you won’t have to deal with me pestering you about letting me out, it's a win win! You can still keep an eye on me and I get to have a little freedom,” The triangle quickly added, putting his hands on his hips as he tried to make a friendly expression.

Honestly.

Did he really think Stanford was dumb enough to agree to something that sounded close enough to remind him of the demon’s underhanded deals? Stanford had no intention of making the same mistake twice, not now or ever. He was about to start giving the demon a piece of his mind when the dorito batted his long eyelashes at him and said, ”Pleeeeeeeaaaase~? Come on, Sixer, even if I am trying to trick you at least it means you can simply take me around with you instead of staying all cooped up in the lab the majority of the time.”

That was…

A pretty good point, actually.

Ford rubbed his temples, a low annoyed sigh leaving him as he mentally cursed the fact that he was giving in here. He knew he was gonna end up regretting this in the space of five seconds but… The idea of getting to relax in his bed and spend a few hours reading a nice book for once was tempting, even if Bill would be there, assumably pestering him about what he was reading, ”Fine, but on one condition; you’re on your best behavior or else I’m doing what I should have done in the first place, Cipher,” He hissed lowly, hoping the threat would at least help give Bill the motivation to keep in line even just for a little bit.

Bill however simply curved his eye upwards in a sort of smug smile as he relaxed, allowing a content sigh to leave him, “Yeah, yeah, whatever you want, Sixer. Say, how’s about we go upstairs, huh? Go bother that twin brother of yours and pick at his crippling insecurities that you helped contribute to?” Yeah, the idea of Bill ever behaving was just a nice thought, really. In reality though, it  seemed to be  quite impossible. He was a demon, after all, what else could Stanford really expect from him here?

He hesitated a moment, seeing the possible negative outcomes of agreeing to this, “...I’ll let you go upstairs. ONLY if you don't let Stanley know you're out of the basement, heck, don’t even let him know you're here in general or else we'll have a real problem, got it?” He grumbled as he slowly got up and stretched, feeling his old bones click a little painfully after spending such a long time in the same position. He hesitated then -paranoia started to plague his mind as the image of Bill doing just… something terrible the moment he let him out the lab made its way into his mind. He mentally told himself to relax, Bill was powerless now and he was going to keep a close eye on him. It was highly unlikely anything would happen without him stopping it in early stages.

With that, he began to head upstairs, thick boots making a soft thud sound against the wooden stairs as he made his way up to the elevator. Bill had managed to climb up to the top of his pocket and was eagerly peeking out, understandably glad that he was going to see something else other than the same dingy lab after three weeks of getting leg cramps and being bored to death.

Stanford briefly glanced down at him, that urge to smile returning at the demon’s alacrity to get out of the lab. It was endearing, really, the way he acted sometimes… Well, at least compared to how he normally acted, anyway. Without thinking too much of it, a hand moved to support the pocket Bill was in, half to make sure that if he fell out then he’d have a cushion. He was already aggravating enough, lord forbid the complaining that would follow if Bill hurt himself in some way.

Bill glanced up at him, eye expanding in a brow-raising motion and smugness ever present, but he said nothing for once. Stanford didn’t show how grateful he felt for that.

 

* * *

 

After he rode the elevator all the way to the top, he gingerly walked up the last flight of stairs and opened the door behind the vending machine, being greeted with the sight of the gift shop. At this point it looked about the same as it had before all the end of the world stuff went down, thanks mostly to the shield he’d put up around it just beforehand.

There were a few noticeable scratches here and there on some of the walls, but had most likely been caused by the wide range of strange creatures that had found refuge here. A part of him almost wished he’d been here to help organize Stan and them better so the defeat of Bill wouldn’t have taken a good several ish days to pull off. But… he’d just been a little too eager to shatter Bill’s face into multiple pieces and… maybe a little too biased towards Stan to even consider his help.

Oh well, it was fine. Everything had worked out in the end thanks to his plans and Dipper’s ability to round everyone up and carry them out. Truly, it was a shame the boy had decided not to stay as his apprentice, it had been nice having someone around he could share all his secrets with without having to worry about getting judged or betrayed.

Anyways.

He shoved both hands, along with Bill, back into his pockets as he walked past Stan. Stan was reading a newspaper at the front desk with his feet up and offered him only a brief glance before he simply pulled the paper up more to hide his face from Ford silently. Or maybe he was just trying to look like he was invested in lazing around and not doing his job. Which Ford supposed he couldn’t really blame him for, it wasn’t like they’d had many customers after the end of the world scare. His expression was as calm and collected as is usually was, save for the grin that kept trying to make its way onto his face as he felt Bill struggling to push his hand off him with his tiny black ones and a low growl. Yes, having power over a once powerful being like Bill really did feel good.

In order to appease the small demon, the moment he was out of Stanley’s field of view, Ford took his hands out of his pocket as he began heading towards his room, relaxing visibly as he opened the door and walked inside. He made sure to lock the door behind him so Bill couldn’t try to escape.

“Ew, I have your disgusting human sweat all over me now,” complained Bill as he proceeded to climb out of Stanford’s pocket and jump down onto the bed with a gentle flop. He took a moment to dust himself off before stretching out his little arms happily. The amount Stanford could bring himself to care about the demon’s slight discomfort was very little and he simply offered a sarcastic roll of the eyes, before he picked out one of his books and sat down on the bed. He proceeded to open it to the first page and begin reading.

“Well, it’s either be a little sweaty or be back inside a jar, whichever one you prefer,” He replied rather bluntly before returning to his reading.

At the comment, Bill shot a small glare his way and Ford only just noticed out of the corner of his eye… He grumbled something along the lines of ‘I hate both options’ before grabbing a handful of blankets and curtly pulling them over himself to get comfortable, happily allowing his lukewarm body to heat up more.  Breathing a soft sigh, obviously glad for the warmth, and glancing back up at Stanford.

Ford could already see that the demon wasn’t going to sit there quietly and let him read. It was simply a question of how long he’d remain noiseless before deciding to break the silence with an irritating comment about something. So he beat him to the punch.

“So, Bill, er… tell me, did you ever expect to be beaten quite as easily as you were?” Ford asked, deciding to start a conversation he knew Bill would dislike having. Sure, he was stooping to his level a bit, but if Bill got annoyed and started ignoring him he’d actually be able to get some reading done. ”I mean, you planned for millions of years, surely you should have had something planned for this situation.”

The response he got was a little different from what he’d expected, as the demon simply let out a small, smug chuckle in response, “Of course I had an idea this COULD happen, anything COULD happen, who’s to say I DON’T have something planned.”

Stanford immediately saw that, obviously, Bill was trying to bluff with the intention of either making him paranoid that he was missing something or was actually just trying to big up his own ego. Then again… What if he really did have some sort of plan?

“Oh, please, if you had something planned you’d be making a better effort to make me actually like you, thus giving you possible alone time to carry out said plans,” Stanford lightly retorted as he turned a page in his book, holding back the urge to simply poke the demon in the eye and tell him to ‘shut it.’ Sure, doing so probably wouldn’t actually make him shut up, but the satisfaction of giving a solid flick in the face and possibly knocking him over was tempting enough.

Bill’s single eye narrowed as he instantly went to respond, ”Maybe I don’t need to make you like me, maybe I’m planning to wait until your human lifespan runs out before doing anything, it’s FAR more reliable of a plan.”

That… Actually sounded like a pretty solid idea. Good thing Bill mentioned it so Stanford could easily work out a way around it!

“Thanks for the heads up, I’ll be sure to develop some way to counteract that in the twenty odd years I have left,” Stanford hummed, allowing a smug grin to make its way onto his face as he simply took a moment to glance down from his book and full look at Bill. By this point his triangular body had started to tint an angry red as his little hands tightly gripped the bedsheets. Had he not known better, he would have said Bill was about to set to sheets alight just to spite him. Seeing this was more satisfying than he’d thought it would be, a small chuckle leaving him.

Evidently, Bill did not find the situation as amusing, assumably his fuse having been largely shortened by his time in the jar. Or, as Ford had liked to call it, the ‘bubble of shame’ back when Bill was actually still trapped in it, named largely in part after the bubble around the town that Bill also couldn’t get out of. He angrily stood up and pointed a finger at Stanford, obviously about to go off on some sort of rant until a voice called down to his room.

“Hey, Ford, who on earth are you talking to in there? If it’s McGucket tell him to stop climbing in through the windows and use the door like a normal person, okay?”

Ah, right, Stanley was still in the house and the walls were pretty paper thin.

Stanford quickly went to try and respond, to tell him that yes, Fiddleford was totally in the room and they were talking about what Stanley called ‘nerd stuff.’ Then he’d just inform him to give them some peace and quiet so they could continue. However, Bill was already ahead of him.

“Ah yes, me and my dear friend Fiddleford are in here having the BEST conversation about old times, in fact, it’s helped me to realize a few things,” Replied Bill, mimicking Stanford’s voice perfectly, earning a firm shove off the bed from Stanford who, upon hearing his last few words, realized what he was trying to do here. He couldn’t let this happen, but, at the same time he couldn’t let Stanley find out Bill was in the room. Gah, this was frustrating.

Stanley, of course, not knowing anything was wrong, simply responded accordingly. “Er, you did? And what might those ‘things’ be?” From what Stanford could tell he sounded a little… …nervous, like he was expecting bad news of some kind which was a little concerning. What exactly did Stanley think he’d realized?

He didn’t have any time to really think about it, however, as Bill, despite that rather harsh signal to stop before, again responded pretending to be Stanford, “Haha, relax, ya knucklehead, I was just gonna say that I think we should spend some more time together, maybe even go fishing.”

…There was the thumping of heavy feet and Ford was quick to shove his blanket on the floor, letting it cover Bill as the door opened. Stan leaned against the doorway, looking in and eyes slightly narrowed at Stanford, “...Is this some kind of sick joke?”

Stanford choked, at a loss considering what to say. He could agree, but Bill had sounded so sincere when he talked before and Stanford felt there was no turning back from it, “I…” He cleared his throat some, silently wishing Bill would cut in again.

He didn’t, though.

Bill really knew how to make him suffer…

“...I thought you said McGucket was in here?” Stanford looked around, raising a brow and Ford felt his heart beating out of his chest.

“He jumped back out the window.”

As far as explanations went, that… Was a pretty weak one. But Stanley seemed to at least somewhat believe it, letting out a low grunt, ”Crazy old man…”

The room proceeded to fall awkwardly silent as Stanford tried to figure out what to say next; if he should go with what Bill said or confirm it had been a joke and deal with the hurt and anger Stanley would feel towards him. Well… One quick fishing trip couldn’t hurt. And it could be the perfect opportunity to continue trying to locate Bill’s cowardly criminal friends.

Besides, denying Stanley this after Bill got his hopes up just seemed cruel.

“But, um, yeah, it wasn’t some sick joke. I… Really want to have some quality ‘family’ time together with you and all that,” He mumbled out, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck as he purposely avoided making eye contact.

Stanley blinked and then a slow grin began to stretch across his face. He cleared his throat, willing his huge smile down to a small, upward curve of the lips. “Yeah… That sounds nice…”

Stanford finally met his eyes and started at the happy, glossy sheen they had. He begged every living deity (except Bill) that Lee didn’t burst out crying, especially with Bill in the room. He would never hear the end of it from the little demon if that happened.

A moment passed before Stanley took a step back and let out a small chuckle. ”Right, I’ll clear the tour schedule for tomorrow and find my fishing poles. You, er, go back to whatever it is you do in your spare time,” And with that he left, gently closing the door behind him.

Stanford waited a good, long moment until his brother’s steps faded out of earshot before  leaning down to pick up the blanket off Bill. After doing so, he scooped the small demon into his hands rather roughly before dropping him back onto the bed. His eye twitched angrily as he had to restrain the urge to start yelling at the triangle, mostly because he knew Stanley would hear and instantly come back, “I can’t believe you, it’s like- like you want me to blast you into a pile of cosmic dust!”

Bill only gave a light-hearted chuckle in response, eye curving upwards in amusement as he studied Stanford’s annoyed face, “Now what on earth gave you that idea? I’ll have you know I’ve been doing everything you made me promise to do.”

“I told you to leave Stanley alone!”

“Nooo, you said not to let him know I was out of the basement. Which I didn’t.”

Stanford’s eye twitched again. He went to say something before simply letting out a sigh, figuring the argument wasn’t worth it and only muttering a small, “Fine, whatever. Well, now I’m stuck going fishing, thanks to someone.”

Bill crawled onto Stanford’s lap, happily making himself comfortable before he directed his attention back up at Stanford. He looked rather pleased with himself, something which only served to annoy Stanford further, “Oh come on, I can see it now; you and old fez sitting there in awkward silence as you proceed to fail to catch even a single fish, SUCH quality family bonding.”

“Yeah… At least I won’t be the only one bored because you’re coming with.”

Bill’s thin pupil focused more intently on Stanford as his eye narrowed, “What? No, what makes you think that would be a good idea?”

“I think it would be a good lesson to teach you to behave more, don’t you agree?”

“No.”

“It’s that or you go back in the jar for several hours until we return.”

“I broke the jar! Suure, you could get another one but why go to the trouble when you could simply lock me in your room or something, let me roam around and do my own thing?”

This was by no means up for debate, Stanford had every intention of making Bill come along and sit in his pocket during the previously mentioned ‘family bonding.’ It might have been risky, considering Bill could get bored and blow his own cover just to amuse himself, but they would be far enough out on the lake where Stanford could threaten to drop him in the water if he misbehaved.

Besides, Stanford didn’t feel comfortable enough to leave Bill alone.

The triangle himself seemed just as determined to get his way here, which, regarding his stubborn personality, was a surprise to absolutely no one. Of course, at this point in time, where he was powerless and unable to even really throw a punch, it wasn’t like Bill could stop make him do anything here. Not like he could before.

No, the worst Bill could do to during the forced fishing trip was yell loudly to piss him off and alert Stanley to his continued existence. Which compared to leaving him home, able to get up to anything, was far more preferable, “You got me into this, Bill, you can help me see it out.” He spoke in a slow, rather firm manner as he continued to hold the continued glare for a moment longer, soon returning his attention back to his book.

“…You really did become a kill joy, you know that, Fordsy?” The small triangle muttered in response after a momentary silence, having given up arguing for now. He wasn’t stupid after all, Stanford supposed, even Bill could see when something was fruitless.

Stanford rolled his eyes, “Yeah, well, that’s your fault now, isn’t it, Bill?” It was true in a way, had it not been for Bill’s past actions, Ford’s outlook and general ability to take one of Bill's ‘jokes’ would probably be a lot better. Heck, just looking at how he used to be thirty years ago was proof.

But hey, this wasn’t thirty years ago and he wasn’t some wide-eyed fool ready to eat up anything a supposed ‘deity’ said. He was Stanford Filbrick Pines, proud demon hunter and savior of Gravity Falls, along with arguably the world.

  
  



	3. Rest and Relaxation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stanford,Stanley and Bill go fishing.  
> Which ends well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops,that took far longer than it probably should of.Hopefully the next update will be faster next time!  
> Speaking of which this chapter was originally going to be far longer but upon realizing that would make the singular chapter roughly 10,000+ words long we decided to split it into two in the interest of not wanting to do that much editing and writing for a singular chapter.  
> -SnippitySnap

             This was the worst.

             It was a hot September day, the sun shining high in the sky accompanied by cruel temperatures unfit for the present autumn season. To think Humans could create such suffering intentionally from their own greed and laziness, it almost made Bill impressed as he sat there in reluctant silence inside Stanford coat pocket. After being forcefully stuffed into Stanford's pocket and told ‘behave or else I’m going to take your top hat and bowtie away,’ Bill found himself at the side of the Gravity Falls lake with Stanford and Stanley for their little “brotherly bonding” fishing trip. It was sure to be filled with entertaining moments, such as the two sitting in awkward silence and not saying anything. Truly riveting .

             To make things worse, despite the warm temperature, Stanford still insisted on wearing his usual thick warm winter clothing .This was either because he was just being a weird old man who for some reason liked feeling pure death - which would explain some things - or that he simply wanted an easily and non-conspicuous way of carrying Bill around. Personally, Bill believed it to be a mix of the two. Normally, he wouldn’t complain about this sort of thing; if Stanford wanted to give himself heat stroke than he was more than welcome to. However, making Bill suffering along with him? Now that was just something he was more than eager to complain about in great length. In fact, had he not been concerned about losing his trademark top hat and bowtie he’d voice his opinions loudly until Ford got annoyed, gave up, and took him home..

             There was an upside, though! A small hole in the side of Ford’s pocket allowed him to kind of get a look at what was going on in Gravity Falls - specifically, a small dot of lake could be seen along with Stanley sometimes depending on the angle. It wasn’t much, sure, but it was far more entertaining than looking at the same boring room for hours on end.

            “You, er- you got enough nerd stuff there, Ford?” Came the sound of Stanford’s dull-witted twin brother, obviously a little taken aback by the sight of what his brother had thought appropriate to bring on a fishing trip - His gun, some rather high tech looking devices, like something that locked onto the presence of demons - all kinds of nerdy science stuff. Either Ford didn’t know what fishing was or he was planning to try and change this into some kind of monster hunt. It kind of reminded Bill of what Mabel and Dipper had done way back when they went fishing with Stan. Man, Bill almost felt bad for the guy.

            There was a bit of rustling and then Bill heard his nerd, “Ah, yes, I think I’m set. There should definitely be enough equipment to help us out here.”

            Stanley’s gaze fixed on Stanford, Bill could see something in the younger Pines’ eyes dying. Some sort of spark of hope, happiness, that had been present in the beginning of the trip was fading at the realization that Ford obviously wasn’t too invested in the fishing trip. Bill wasn’t sure why Stan hadn’t realized it before; he’d known Stanford for the majority of his life. He’d done this before, gotten his own hopes up because of something Stanford had said only to have those hopes quickly crushed. But then again, humans weren’t exactly known for taking a hint, now were they?

Stanley only gave a short hum of acknowledgement before his attention directed downward, away from his brother, a silent sigh leaving his mortal body as he quickly went back to organizing the fishing equipment.

            It was obvious the guy wasn’t too thrilled about facing near-possible death again, obvious to everyone except for Stanford apparently. Did he really think Stanley - the guy who, in the beginning when Ford first returned, spent most his time complaining about all the weird shit he did - would enjoy monster hunting? He wasn’t that dense, or maybe he was. That, or for some reason he thought he could convince his brother to somehow see what he enjoyed about fighting monsters and all that stuff. Personally, Bill was somewhat interested in the idea of tracking something down, taking his time and letting it know he was after it before striking. But… Evidently Stanford was thinking more along the lines of finding something than either writing in his journal about it or catching it and trying to observe its behavior. He supposed he might share the interest had he not already been well aware of what everything and anything in Gravity Falls was already, thus making it boring to him.

           There was, of course, also the fact that currently he was tiny and helpless, not the ideal thing to be when tracking down creatures likely to try and eat him. But Ford either didn’t care or hadn’t considered it yet. Squirming a little in his captor’s pocket, Bill poked hard behind him, trying to jab through the thick fabric enough to bother Stanford and get his attention, maybe clue him into how much of a bad everything this was. Eventually he felt the man wince slightly.

           A hand - presumably Stanford's - came down and pressed over the pocket, smushing Bill flat like a pancake. Oh, so he was simply gonna write him off and try to ignore him, huh? He didn’t think trying to listen to the infinitely more knowledgeable demon was a good idea? The urge to vocally voice his complaints arose in the back of his mind slowly as the hand remained, his own tiny hands curling up into angry fists and body slowly becoming a dark red until…

          He sighed lowly, allowing his shape to return to its usual colour. Getting angry and yelling at the guy would be showing he let his human idiocy get to him, not to mention he wasn’t yet willing to part with his hat and Bowie over something as trivial as Stanford being unaware of how to properly interact with other human beings. If Stanford wanted to dig himself into his little hole of troubles Bill would let him, up until the point Stanford's decisions actually affected him negatively. Then he’d be more than happy to spend a good ten minutes giving him and his brother a piece of his mind. That’d be good  for relieving stress, not to mention seeing an angry Stanley telling Ford off for releasing the little yellow psychopath would rather amusing to watch.

          He’d wait, however, wait until the perfect opportunity where he could get away with it and justify himself even just a little bit. Sure, Stanford already hated him but he didn’t want to make the guy hate him that much more. Things were fine as they were right now - except for the fact he was trapped and at the guy’s mercy - and making Ford want to _actually_ kill him obviously wouldn’t help.

          The current, slightly awkward silence was then broken by Stanford gently clearing his throat. Bill’s train of thought being broken along in it as he begrudgingly directed his attention to Stanford, vague curiosity playing at his mind as to what he was doing to say. “So, you ready to go mons-fishing Stanley, have some good old fashioned fun?” He could almost picture the obviously forced smile that was probably on his face to try and somehow appease his twin brother. Or more specifically, try to seem like a good brother; a title that Bill was vaguely aware probably would never be used in tangent with Stanford's name. Why? Dumb human culture things coupled with the fact that Stanford was hopeless at following said dumb human culture things.

          Stan simply grunted in response and proceeded to get into the now rather worn and old Stan-o-war with all the fishing equipment he obviously knew they wouldn’t be using. He glanced up at Stanford in an expectant manner afterwards.

          “Oh, sorry, one moment,” Came Stanford's voice as his hand moved away from his pocket, allowing Bill to happily slide back down to the bottom again. Stanford stood still for a moment, assumably picking up his nerd stuff with both hands before heading after Stanley and joining him in the boat.

          The two shuffled around a bit to fit everything in nice and snugly before they began moving. The twins remained silent, allowing the purr of the engine to fill the awkward silence as a makeshift fix instead of actually trying to engage in any kind of conversation with each other and maybe start to work things out.

           …Yep, even after the boat stopped and the silence returned it didn’t seem like the two dorky old men were going to make the first move, conversation-wise. Which, in their defense, Bill supposed would probably end up in them getting in a heated debate over which of the twin’s dumb hobbies they would do, what with both twins being equally stubborn and the added fact that technically Stanford had promised to go fishing with Stanley - something he was sure Stanley would angrily remind his brother later.Which was assuming this went any further than the two sitting in awkward silence .Time for Bill to step in and ‘help.’

           “Come on, Stanley, you didn’t really think we’d be fishing, did you? A good old monster hunt is far more productive, not to mention it’ll make this trip actually fun.”

            Of course, the sound of his “brother’s” mocking voice quickly focused his attention onto Stanford, eyes widening a little in brief surprise before he began looking rather annoyed. His fist tightened around the fishing pole in his hand as he seemed to try and simply brush off the words like he usually did. It was probably just a bit harder since you know, he thought his own brother had just said that.

            “Course not, friggin knew it was too good to be true from the moment you said it,” He retorted a little defensively, obviously hurt by ‘Stanford's’ words. “Why on earth would you take an interest in what I like doing right?”

             Stanford looked equally hurt and angry from what Bill could see. Assumably hurt that his brother thought that badly of him and that Bill was butting his head in and forcing him to face the problem. Or, as Ford probably saw it, he was just being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. The man took a slow deep breath, left eye twitching a little before he began trying to defuse the situation. “That's not what I meant, I wasn’t lying before when I said I wanted to hang out, but monster hunting is kind of _like_ fishing, just with…. with fish.” He said with an awkward chuckle. ”Sorry, you know me, I’ve… never really been good with words…”

           …Stanley didn’t respond. He just sat there silently fuming, avoiding eye contact.

           “I’m sorry. I do want to fish with you, really. It’s just, I do need to track down all of that dead Doritos's buddies, right? What better time to do it than now?”

            Wait, dead? Bill narrowed his eye as he went over the words a few more times in his head to make sure he’d heard right. It was no wonder Ford didn’t want Stanley to know Bill was here, it would expose this large, obvious lie of his. The question was ‘what was the point of the lie?’ Was it so he could play the brave hero who killed the villain? Was it to stop the town worrying about the possibility of him coming back and killing them all? Or was it just because he just couldn’t bare to kill such a dear, sweet old friend and didn’t want people to know? He kind of wanted it to be the third but it was the most unlikely. Wasn’t gonna stop him teasing Ford about it later though.

            His attention returned to Stanley when he heard him let out a small sigh before smiling softly. The light smile was quickly replaced with a wide, slightly fake grin, “How about this, we both hunt down those sons of bitches together after a _bit_ of fishing first, you know, as a team?” He grinned towards his brother, who managed a weak smile. It wasn’t the fishing Lee originally wanted but hey, now Stanford either had the option of rejecting the suggestion and looking like a complete jerk or accepting it and having to spend more time with his brother. He already knew what Stanford would do in the interest of not starting an argument, and he knew poor Fordsy would hate it, hate how it reminded him of days long forgotten in Jersey and how naive he’d been. It also probably made him feel guilty, which in Bill’s experience, humans usually got angry or upset about.

           “Yeah, that sounds fairly reasonable,” Stanford muttered under his breath, hands going behind his back to make that funny little pose he liked to do when he felt awkward or was talking about something important. What a dork. “But that _does_ mean you have to _fish_ and not fiddle around with all your nerd equipment for at least an hour.” A fishing rod was pushed into Stanford’s hands, “Got it?”

            Bill could tell Ford was doing his best to put up with this, in Bill’s own biased opinion, boring pastime for people who really didn’t have anything better to do. He felt Stanford take a deep breath, “Alright… Give me a worm.”

            “Oh, I don’t use worms. I use leeches as bait.” Stanley carefully grabbed one and offered it to his brother, who took it with a barely hidden cringe.

             Stanley laughed and proceeded to start trying to teach Ford the ‘art’ of fishing, which Ford already knew but allowed him to explain in order to appease the old man. It was kind of pathetic really, not to mention dull. Whatever, he’d just go back to plotting ways of escape like he’d started making a habit of doing during his lengthy imprisonment. Nothing like plotting brutal murder to give you to motivation to keep yourself entertained.

              “So Ford, er… How’s your work going? You know, that stuff you’ve been doing in the basement?”

              Bill ignored the conversation, wondering to himself if a suitable revenge would be murdering all of Stanford’s family while Ford watched helplessly, or maybe simply killing him when he least expected it once Bill slowly got his powers back… Somehow .

             “Oh, you know, the usual, working to try and rewrite all my notes after they were burned to a crisp by a certain demon.”

              Maybe waiting a few years, letting him and Ford get all chummy before killing his family out of nowhere would be better instead. Sure it would take waaaay longer to set up, but ultimately getting to stab Ford in the back and get that same surprised, hurt expression as he had way back when would be worth it. This time it would be satisfying for sure.

              “Really ? I thought you’d be doing some more important nerd stuff, like tracking down the leftover weirdos from the rip in the sky.”

               Bill found himself beginning to half listen as he realized Stanley kind of did have a point here. Why hadn’t Ford been going around terminator-style killing all of his old buddies within the first few seconds of defeating him? Was he suddenly on a gap year or something?

               “Trust me ,It would be a waste of time and resources, it’s better to wait for things to cool down before going and hunting them down when they’ve started to relax.” Came the explanation after a short pause, “I kind of realized that after the first few days of searching for them.”

                Huh… Bill didn’t remember Ford doing that… He’d probably just been unconscious or something along those lines.

               “Yeah, that makes sense… …We’re not gonna need to start traveling the country looking for them, are we? I’m not exactly welcome in most states…” Asked Stanley with slight hesitation, voice gruff and seemingly uncaring in an obvious attempt to cover up his small worry .

               Stanford, unsurprisingly, didn’t notice and simply responded with a light chuckle. “Ha-ha, no, Stanley. The barriers still up after all. They won’t be able to leave Gravity Falls for a good long while.” Yeah, that thing .The only thing Bill hated more than the stupid town and its stupid people.. Of course it was still up. He didn’t know who’d put it up but oh, when he found them and wasn't a tiny flailing Dorito he’d make them regret screwing him over. Which was evidently going to have to wait a ‘good long while’ like Stanford pointed out. “What? You think I’d slack off and do less important stuff if I thought they could actually get away?”

               Bill couldn’t help but chuckle slightly at that as he half hoped the brother would just flat out say yes just to really stick it to his brother. Unfortunately, he did not, only offering a short blunt “no” followed by a roll of the eyes which was at least amusingly sassy. Stanford raised an eyebrow at him, going to say something before simply chuckling a little. “Right,” He muttered before turning his attention back to the sport of pulling fish from their homes and cooking them alive.

               Huh, Bill had almost forgotten Stanford actually had a sense of humor and could in fact laugh. He used to be like this all the time, an adorable, naive dork who trusted people too much which, of course, led to him becoming a bitter old man with issues. A shame too, he’d liked Ford so much better when he was covering his walls in images of him and getting little gold status made of him. You know , normal friend stuff. If only he’d stayed like that and joined him, it would have been… well, unlikely.  

               But hey, no point thinking about it, right?

               The twins began fishing in silence then, Stanford evidently too out of his comfort zone to really start up the conversation again while Stanley didn’t seem to be able to think of anything else to say. For a moment, Bill wished the two got along better so he didn’t have to deal with getting annoyed at how hopeless they were at dealing with their own feelings.

               Bill sighed silently, shifting a little to get more comfortable before closing his eye. There was no point in really watching this any longer, it was just gonna be boring human bonding stuff or  awkward moments, neither of which Bill really cared much for.

* * *

 

             

             They must have been sitting there silently for at least twenty minutes, Stanley sitting at one side of the boat silently watching his rod while Stanford sat on the other side, bored out of his mind. He supposed he should at least be somewhat thankful that Bill was behaving, _for the most part at least_. He’d need to figure out some way to get the triangle to stop imitating him and getting him in, to say the least, undesirable situations, but other than that things seemed better than he had originally expected. But then again, he had been expecting a fight to break out that swiftly ended in all three of them falling into the lake and getting soaked. Some things he did not particularly want to have to deal with were drenched clothes and the demon complaining about being wet.

             In fact, maybe that was why Bill was mostly behaving. It was understandable someone of his current size and fragility wouldn’t want to fall into a lake.

             It was an amusing thought, the small triangle flailing in the water trying not to drown… Assuming Bill could drown, that is. He didn’t need to breathe exactly from what Stanford understood. So…  It was anyone's guess as to what would happen if he fell in the water .Not that it wasn’t tempting to throw him in and find out for the sake of curiosity.

             Anyway.

             Stanford brought his attention back to the current activity, which at this point he’d simply given up at and thus rested his rod against the side of the boat. He had the thing half dangling over the edge with its lure in the water so it at least looked like he was kind of trying. It wasn’t like they were going to catch anything, regardless. Back in his youth, he’d tried fishing up something interesting from the lake before but to no avail. The only thing of note here was the gobblewonker, but generally it kept to the deeper parts of the lake and away from people, and more importantly, their nets.

             It was a shame really. He would love to get a closer look at the thing, maybe try to communicate with it in some way or learn more about how its giant scaly body functioned. Of course, with his current equipment it was an impossibility, he’d brought stuff for land based creatures so nothing was really that waterproof.

             Disinterest slowly becoming more apparent he began to wonder if talking to a giant sea creature would even be possible in the first place. Considering the language gap and the fact that it had probably never interacted with anything else in such a way made the idea rather unlikely, sure. But it was a nice thought, having something smart to talk to for once other than his moronic brother and an irritating triangle who pretended to be stupid. Ha. Yeah, he felt the urge to slap himself for thinking that, realizing that maybe Bill’s self-righteous attitude had rubbed off on him a little. _What a nice thought_.

             A low sigh left him, drawing the attention of his twin who stared at him blankly for a moment. He felt irritation start to cloud his mind as he wondered what his brother was thinking about him. Was he judging him? Or was he simply pitying him silently for his inherent uselessness at attempted ‘family bonding’ because of his own selfishness..

             “You know, we can stop fishing a little early and go monster hunting instead, if you’d like?” Stanley asked, much to Stanford's surprise. Had he changed his mind and decided he might enjoy the activity far more than fishing? Maybe, he vaguely hoped so. It would mean they’d finally have something in common other than appearance. And more importantly, it’d mean Stanford would be able to blow off some steam and shoot some guns.

             Stanford nodded, a small smile making its way onto his face as he picked up his rod. “That sounds great! Not that, er, fishing isn’t, it's just… not really for me…” He chuckled awkwardly before trailing off, feeling a strange sense of guilt about this despite the fact that he knew they’d enjoy this far more. Stanley just didn’t know what true excitement was yet, once they’d gone off and bagged a monster, Ford was sure Lee would start to understand his intentions better.

             His attention was then pulled away from the matter as he noticed one of the boats near them suddenly have all its fishing rods yanked into the water by _something_. Feeling his heart flutter with curious thrill, he quickly moved to the side of the boat to try and get a better look at what happened. It was then that he noticed it, a slightly darker patch in the water that could almost just be mistakened for deeper waters. Except it was moving, making waves slap against the sides of the boat.

             “...Yoooooou okay there, Ford?” Came the voice of his concerned brother as he moved to try and look at whatever Ford was. Upon spotting the large shadow, his expression momentarily soured before he let out a small chuckle. “Right, I think this might be a good sign to head back and avoid getting possibly eaten by a giant fish, okay, Sixer?”

             However, by this point Ford had already grabbed ahold of his rod and tossed the lure towards whatever was in the water. Over the past three weeks filled with nothing but book reading and annoyances this was the first intriguing thing he’d managed to encounter. So, needless to say he was rather excited. This couldn’t be the gobblewonker, despite its appearance it only ate seaweed and other such substances. No, this was something else entirely.

             He needed to know more. He needed to catch it.

             Stan, of course, seemed to vaguely become aware of this as he was unintentionally ignored. Giving an audible groan before starting to rummage around for life jackets and such for the moment they’d probably be tipped by some giant fish monster. Just another day in Gravity Falls, the town that didn’t seem to ever run out of crazy shit even after the end of the world. That had been why Stanford came here in the first place after all.

             It was then that his attention was violently assaulted by the sharp sensation of something jabbing his leg, the something he easily recognized as Bill poking him rather violently in some weak attempt to tell him to stop whatever he was doing. With a slight huff Stanford simply ignored him, not caring for any complaints Bill wanted to voice about the certain danger of what he was doing here. Honestly, a being like Bill should understand nothing fun was ever remotely safe.

             Then the mysterious shadow in the water took the bait.

             Being only one human man, he was easily pulled off his feet and into the water with a rather loud splash, the boat rocking considerably afterwards as Stanley desperately held onto the side to try and stop himself from falling in too. Within a matter of moments, the lake returned to how it had been before, calm and silent, leaving Stanley to simply stare over the side of the boat and worriedly try to work out what on earth to do here..

             Stanford was fine, more or less.

             Being a self-proclaimed ‘fearless’ hero, Stanford had refused to let go of the rod and was dragged down into the water by something rather… Large and spindly, certainly nothing that seemed like it belonged in the ocean. But then, why was it here in the first place at all, was it attempting to hunt?

             Of course, trying to get a closer look at this creature was impossible at the current speed, the force of the water hitting his face and glasses rendering him practically blind. Great . Bill proceeded to yell something rather angrily at him that he couldn’t quite make out, so, justifiably, he simply assumed he was being insulted and ignored him.

             His lungs began to burn at the lack of oxygen as he bit back the urge to try and gasp for breath, knowing it would only serve to screw him over here. He quickly assessed the situation before deciding it obviously wasn’t worth drowning for the sake of being a Curious George. And so he let go, waiting a moment for himself to come to a halt before he began swimming upwards towards the surface. Slowly his face began turning red from the strain of trying to swim with such thick clothes on. Dammit, his bad fashion taste was going to be the end of him someday…

             …A desperate gasp left him as he broke the surface, short coughs shortly following when he subsequently started to choke on the air a little bit. Speaking honestly, that hadn’t gone quite as well as he’d originally hoped it would. Oh well, getting an old rush like that at the cost of only one of Stanley’s rods and a little bit of his own pride was relatively worth it. As long as Bill didn’t start pointing out how much better he could have planned his previous actions and mocking him for it. Upon slowly catching his breath, Ford turned his attention to his surroundings. Judging from the island he saw about five hundred meters away from him he’d been dragged quite far from where he’d been originally. Impressive, the creature had been able to pull him this far.

             “FORD, WHAT THE FUCK!”

             Oh right, Stanley.

             He quickly turned in the direction of his brother’s angry yelling to see the rather broken and, quite honestly badly made Stan-o-war approaching. His brother was looking a bit red in the face as he got close enough for Ford to get a moderately good look through his water-covered glasses. “In my defense, I didn’t think it’d be that strong.” He called back in a slightly defensive manner, earning a loud groan from his brother.

             “Riiiiiight, because a giant sea monsters going to be anything less than super strong,” Stanley retorted with an obvious undertone of sarcasm, stopping the boat near Stanford before struggling to help him back into the boat. Something which, in his defense, was rather difficult considering how heavy Stanford was with the added weight of his soaked clothes.

             Stanford, unable to think of anything smart to say in response, simply huffed; shuddering a little at the uncomfortable feeling of wet everything as he made it back onto the boat. “So, do you even have any idea what that... _thing_ was, Poindexter?” Asked Stanley in a concerned tone, taking the time to briefly glance at his brother as if trying to make sure he hadn’t been hurt in any way.

             “Well… If I had to guess I’d say… It’s not a giant fish; it's a land predator that probably hunts fish and similar things like an otter.” He quickly explained, not wanting to give Stanford the impression he’d almost drowned over nothing. “It must be pretty hungry considering it went after the small leech I was using as bait…”

             "So… We’re dealing with a giant leech-eating otter?” Asked Stanley, raising an eyebrow at him .

             It took a moment for the statement to fully process in Stanford's head before he let out a short laugh, the idea of an actual giant leech-eating otter amusing him. “Oh shush you, I mean, it's like an otter in the fact that it lives on land and hunts in the water,” He retorted lightly. Stanley chuckled a little back in response before lightly rubbing his chin in thought, appearing to at least put some effort into helping his brother with his mystery.

             From its appearance, he would have guessed it would easily be big enough to feel comfortable attempting to eat something of his own size. But then why hadn’t it? Or better yet, why hadn’t it tried to eat any of the other people in the lake it had gone past. It didn’t make sense, why would something that big only eat the small bits of bait on the ends of peoples rods?

             Hmmm…

             Maybe he should risk trying to ask Bill about it quietly, the guy used to be all-knowing after all. If anyone was gonna have an idea about the creature, without wasting hours pondering over it, then it would be the guy who had for millions of years made it his job to know little bits of mostly useless information about things that really didn’t concern him.

             Speaking of the little bastard… Bill was being awfully quiet and non-violent despite the fact Stanford had ignored him before and gotten his ass dragged into the water, soaking them both in the process. Knowing Bill, he should be beyond mad at this point.

             Casually, he put his hands in his pockets, trying to check that the isosceles piece of shit was still in one of them.

             “Er, Ford, you okay? You don’t look so good.”

             Stanford’s face started to go pale as he found nothing. Not a triangle, nor any of the other crap he’d had in his pockets.

             Fuck


	4. Mistakes were Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill gets carried away and sort of makes some mistakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crapness, this took forever to post. Which is my fault, honestly. I take forever to get around to editting the chapters and stuff... But I'm going to try and do better with that.  
> This is probably hands down the longest chapter we've yet to post at just over 11,000 words.  
> Okey, here we go.

To be perfectly honest, Bill hadn’t expected a simple fishing trip to do a 180 this fast, or, at least, in this direction. He’d actually kind of been betting on Stanley and Stanford getting into a good old fistsy cuffs match, which hadn’t happened yet, much to his prior disappointment. This fact alone annoyed him; he was a supposed being of infinite knowledge and intelligence, knowing this was going to happen should have been no problem, even without his powers. He had 100,000 plus years of experience after all.                   

After Stanford - being the reckless and nonsensical human being that he was - was forcefully dragged into the lake by the creature _,_ Bill found himself in a rather troubling situation. The force of the water acting against them was opening up Ford’s pockets and slowly pushing Bill out of the one he’d been situated in at the time. He’d desperately gripped onto the side of the pocket to try and keep himself attached to the giant dork man, not particularly fancying the idea of floating to the bottom and getting stuck there. Like most creatures would in his situation, he began yelling at Stanford to let go and simply accept he’d been bested by a large, probably smelly, fish.

Stanford, however, being the _infinitely helpful and selfless being_ that he was, proceeded to ignore him. It might have just been the water rushing past his ears, but a part of him knew Stanford wasn’t exactly interested in hearing what he had to say right now. Yelling at him even louder also didn’t seem to help in the few moments before he finally lost his grip and abruptly flew backwards. Within the time it took him to properly compose himself, Stanford had already been pulled out of view, leaving Bill to slowly start sinking despite his best efforts to swim.

_Perfect_

This whole situation was starting to give him a weird sense of deja vu, reminding him closely of the helpless feeling he’d experienced while trapped in the jar. Sure, given enough time he might be able to make his way back up to the surface, but it was unlikely considering his lack of aquatic ability. The odds pointed towards him being stuck down here unless Stanford decided to come back for him and there _was nothing at all he could do about it._ He didn’t like that. He was supposed to be this all-powerful being that brought entire civilizations to its knees, not some half pint tortilla chip that couldn’t even stop a human from doing something obviously stupid. Ha, if only his friends could see him now. He had no doubt they’d mock him for it.

Eventually, his body came to a halt when it gently bumped into the bottom of the lake, his attention briefly being directed up the surface where he could see various illuminated patterns dancing as the sun's rays reflected. It hurt his eye and he didn’t like it. On the bright side - literally - it did at least provide enough light in order to allow him to observe his surroundings, even if they were rather dull. The bottom of the lake mostly consisted of dirt with a few bits of seaweed growing upwards, gently rocking to and fro with the water’s movements. The sea life itself was also pretty average, fish close to his size or smaller swimming around, keeping a distance from him. He chuckled a little at that; good, the fish knew better than to bother something like him.

Otherwise, that was pretty much it.          

Out of all the prisons he’d been kept in over the years, he had to admit this was the most boring and unpleasant, second only to the time when he’d been briefly thrown in interdimensional prison for the first time. It had been an experience he never wished to consciously think about, but at least he’d gained from valuable experiences from it, as for this - what on earth was he supposed to learn from sitting on the bottom of a lake?? Asides from how to regret his own life choices .

…                                          

He didn’t like the silence. Maybe it was just old paranoia playing at his mind, but instead of being ‘calming’ or ‘tranquil’ like it was for most humans, he could only find himself become wary in it. Silence either meant there was nothing in the area or his senses were somehow impaired, leaving himself open for some kind of sneak attack - the thought of which was not at all pleasant. Or, lastly, it could mean there was something out there searching, waiting for him to drop his guard before…

Well, those were just theoretical situations. The actual chance of there being something smart or strong enough in this dimension capable of pulling that off was slim. It would also need to be something amphibious or some kind of magical creature like Bill,lord knows this town was full of them.It was however unlikely any of them would risk approaching him after seeing what he’d done to their town just a little while ago.

So to put it simply, he really didn’t have anything to worry about. The only danger he was in was getting too bored from waiting for something to happen. Mm, maybe trying to make a sharpened stick and stab some fish all prehistoric-man style would help to entertain him.

Unfortunately, he didn’t really have all that long to consider the idea as he suddenly became very aware that he was now under shade. Strange. Curious as to why this was, he directed his attention upwards, narrowing his eye a bit before he froze in place. It was something incredibly large, a monster staring down at him with big eyes… big… 8ball eyes. He chuckled lowly, willing himself to relax as he recognized who it was. Sure, maybe a little bigger than he remembered but it still had the same relative proportions that he’d grown used to observing.

“Well, well, wellllll, 8-Ball, isn’t **this** a surprise,” He chuckled in a confident manner. It was a little forced, of course, but letting one of his men know of he was a little afraid of him wasn’t exactly a good idea. “And here I thought I wouldn’t see any of my old pals again! How’ve you been, ya weirdo?”                                       

The large, lanky creature standing above him began slowly leaning down so as to get a better look at his ‘boss,’ bones cracking as he did so. Due to Bill’s short height, he ended up having to rest his head on the ground just to get close enough to really get a good look. “Er… If you don’t mind me askin, Boss… Why are you so tiny?”

He felt his tiny body tense a little at the immediate question of his short stature, having to resist the urge to tell the guy it was none of his damned business. However, judging by 8-Ball’s size, he hadn’t been stripped of his powers so being rude and confrontational towards him probably wouldn’t end well. So, he simply forced the closest thing to a smile that he could achieve and lied.

“Isn’t it obvious? To make it easier for myself to remain hidden while I figure out how to enact my revenge. Honestly, I’m surprised _you're_ not doing it too.” He explained with a small sigh, attempting to give off the impression that it was something obvious that 8-Ball should have noticed to begin with. To be perfectly honest, it kind of was, as well. If he still had his powers he’d probably actually be doing it. “I mean, you _are_ aware he’s currently in the process of hunting us down, right? You _saw_ what he did to me last time when he had the chance.”

8-Ball appeared to take a moment to contemplate the information given to him before slowly moving to scratch his chin, large 8-Ball eyes looking off in a different direction before they returned their gaze to stare at Bill. “Yes, I know… Why else would I be here, when the only food is weird tasting sticks?” 8-Ball replied slowly, stomach briefly growling as a low sigh left him. “I wish I hadn’t got separated from Teeth and the others, I bet they have actual food.”

He’d almost forgotten how absolutely useless 8-Ball was on his own after being a crew for such a long time. Sure, the guy was plenty strong and his weird eyes had pretty useful properties, but he was too impulsive and didn’t possess the mental capacity to really think anything through to much. This was why he was usually teamed up with the calculating and greedy Teeth; they helped balance out each other's weaknesses. It was a relief really, not being the only one struggling in this dumb town, or fairing the worst by far. It helped boost his confidence a little.

“Yes, regrouping and coming up with a plan would be ideal right now, wouldn’t you agree big guy?” Bill mused lowly in response, gears turning in his head as he considered where the rest of his gang was hiding. In all probability, they’d ended up either heading off alone or keeping together in small groups in order to avoid attracting attention. While this was a good strategy to remain hidden from Stanford, it in turn would also make them a complete pain in the ass the find. Well, if he _had_ an ass it would be, but that was besides the point here.

Having at least some semblance of common sense - or knowing better than to question Bill when it came to this sort of thing - 8-Ball nodded in agreement. “Er, yes,” He muttered lowly, attention appearing to drift for a moment as a few pairs of human legs became visible in the water within his line of sight. His stomach growled again, rather loudly as he proceeded to wet his lips with his big stupid tongue.

“Hey, hey, focus, come on, once we’ve regrouped we’ll set about feasting as many fleshy creatures as you want, okay?” Insisted Bill quickly, snapping his fingers a few times to try and get 8-Balls undivided attention again so they could get this all done quickly. As much as he wasn’t against devouring humans, who in all honestly probably weren’t going to do anything of note in their entire lives ...Stanford was still up there. If Stanford saw people getting eaten it would only serve to make him about 90% more likely to gun down 8-Ball when he found him, along with Bill himself if he found out he’d _technically_ had a hand in it. Not that’d he’d personally eat people anyway, well, their souls and minds sure, but their disgusting fleshy bodies? NO thanks.

           8-Ball slowly directed his attention back down to Bill, a low groan rumbling out of him as he seemed to be pretty restless. Yeah, getting right to the point now was probably a good plan before 8-Ball decided to simply feast of Human flesh and give away his position.

           “Right, I just need you to pick me up and stealthily take me up to that island in the middle of the lake. There I can try to use, er, some of my mind demon powers to contact the others and organize stuff.” He bluffed, hoping once they actually got there he’d be able to come up with an excuse that Stanford was blocking his magic or something and he needed 8-Ball to go capture him. Then, when Stanford was at his mercy again, he could get him to fully explain what he’d done with his powers and how to return Bill to his former glory. It’d been too much to simply destroy. No, destroying that much power probably would have ended in a manner similar to an atomic bomb going off. Which, unfortunately, didn’t appear to be what happened.

Yes, this was a good plan. He liked this plan.

His dim-witted pal nodded, fortunately not bothering to ask anymore questions. His form slowly moving into a standing position as one of his large spindly hands came down to not so gently pick Bill up. 8-Ball squeezed him a little bit too hard between his fingers. As much as Bill would have liked to complain at him, giving 8-Ball a reason to think he was far weaker than he had been the last time they’d talked wouldn’t end well. His height was already a dead giveaway. But, luckily, the guy seemed to take the poor excuse he’d given earlier. Besides, giving up comfort in exchange for less ridicule and a lower chance of his buddy turning on him and trying to make him the henchman was worth it. At least, in Bill’s opinion anyway.

Regardless, turning his attention back to the task at hand; Stanford was probably going to notice he was gone pretty quickly considering how paranoid he was. Well, that was assuming he and Stanley didn’t start arguing. That could probably be anywhere from ten minutes to two hours, depending on how much longer the two spent bickering over whatever insignificant feelings related topic they picked out after Ford's lesser brother fished him out the lake. It was a possibly rather small time frame, sure, but if they moved quickly enough they should be able to put a decent amount of distance between them and Stanford. That should in turn provide him enough time to set up his plan.

The plan itself was heavily unpolished, definitely, and heavily relied on his pal 8-Ball doing whatever he was told to do without asking too many questions and willingly waiting for Bill to finish interrogating Stanford - something which was rather unlikely. However, other than that, Bill was pretty confident that it would all work out like it usually did… Other than the one time it hadn’t recently and he’d ended up stranded in this dimension without any powers at all… But hey, that had simply been a fluke. There was no way this was going to end in an even vaguely similar manner to _that._

* * *

“He’s _what?!_ ”

The expression currently painted across Stanley's face could only be described as stricken with multiple violent emotions, leading Stanford to brace himself on the off chance his detrimental actions understandably caused his brother to seek a violent outlet. It was his fault he supposed, even when they were kids Stanley had always been overly sensitive and quick to jump to conclusions when it concerned things he didn’t understand. He should tried to accommodate for that and tell him everything from the beginning in order to prevent this from happening.

“To reiterate, Bill cipher is alive but subdued so he won’t be able to cause any trouble easily…” Stanford said slowly, remaining relatively calm as he resisted the urge to sigh and risk aggravating his brother further. That would simply waste more valuable time that could be better put to use locating Bill before he disappeared and went back to what he’d done previously to gain strength; make deals. While he’d used one of his inventions to essentially rip out a chunk of Bill’s living energy from him, making his form too weak to manifest any of his powers, that energy could easily be replaced.

He knew it would be hard for his brother to understand the gravity of the situation at hand, which was partly why he’d decided to keep it to himself in the first place. Stanley probably didn’t perceive it in such a manner, no, he likely took it far more personally than was intended. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you any of this to begin with, but that really isn’t important right now; Bill’s probably at the bottom of the lake by now. We need to come up with a feasible plan to get him before he escapes.”

However, the words didn’t appear to have the effect he’d hoped for as Stanley's expression only darkened further, fingers twitching instinctively before he abruptly turned and sat down on one of the wooden benches. A single, drawn-out sigh made its way out of him. “Things haven’t changedm have they? You didn’t tell me about the rift before and now…. You’re still… …just… so _condescending_.” He growled, form tensing before he slowly ran his wrinkled hands through his hair, knocking his fez off in the process. “I suppose you only wanted to go ‘fishing’ in the first place because you wanted to use my boat, right? Ya couldn’t have just gone to the trouble of stealing it without me knowing, hm? Or does it go against your ‘hero code?’ Smart guy...”

Stanford quickly went to argue, to give some logical justification to explain that that and the current problem had nothing in common at all, but… It would all just be a straight lie, wouldn’t it? The only reason he’d gone fishing in the first place was to avoid this kind of heated emotional conversation back when Bill had pretended to be him and spoke directly to Stanley, filling his head with stupid promises. Thinking about it in that light only served to make him feel uncomfortably sick so he quickly tried to direct his attention onto something else. Getting distracted by his emotions now wouldn’t help anyone right now. He was Stanford Filbrick Pines, rational minded and smart; personal feelings like this weren’t important.

“Stanley, you-... We’ll discuss this later, okay? If we don’t make sure Bill remains under careful watch he might go and cause another Weirdmageddon. Do you want to have to deal with kicking his ass a second time?” He reasoned softly, not wanting to aggravate his brother further and risk wasting more precious time. Judging by the current direction of the conversation, it was only going to end in Stanley throwing a bunch of angry accusations at him. Being honest with himself, Stanford really didn’t think he’d be able to take that without getting caught up in his emotions. He couldn’t allow that. No. He was far too above this to allow himself to let Stanley get to him.

At first Stanley went to angrily respond before...

Silence.

“Fine,” came a response, the old man's body remaining rigid and closed off as he slowly moved to stand up again. One hand tightly gripped the boat's motor as he set about trying to start up the worn thing in preparation in case they needed to move anywhere - despite the Stan-o-war’s numerous coughs and splutters of protest.

Stanford felt the urge to try and say something, repair the other’s obvious sour mood so they could at least return to that awkward friendliness they’d had before now. Why did his brother always have to be so… so….. _normal?_ Normal was the correct word to describe it, wasn’t it? Stanley wasn’t like him. He was an ordinary human being with normal human feelings which Stanford had managed to hurt. No, thinking like that was just the result of all the lies Bill had fed him all those years ago. He was just terrible at understanding emotions despite how clever he was.

He could fix this however. He’d admit his errors in not considering his brother’s emotions and offer to fix all the problems he’d caused. They could go fishing again at some other point - with a far more functional boat of course - and he was sure the emotional hurt from previous actions could be mended on both sides from some honest apologies and material gifts. At least that’s what he believed most people did in this kind of situation.

Directing his mind towards more important subjects, he bent down and retrieved one of the various machines he’d brought with him in preparation for a scenario such as this. Of course the original reason he’d taken it with him had been to locate some of the other lingering demons, but he believed it would serve the purpose of finding Bill just as easily. Since, you know, Bill was a demon too. Despite being essentially striped of the ability to produce any of his energy-based powers, it should still pick up what little energy was being used to construct his body.

After turning the dials to the correct settings and turning the scanner on, he directed his attention to the wide screen in the center of the device to check to see if any little blips appeared. For a moment the thing remained blank, only producing a low buzzing noise as it sent out infrared waves to scan the area. Frowning after a moment, he lightly hit the side of it impatiently, a small red dot appeared on the screen afterwards as if to get him to stop hitting it. One would usually simply assume this was of the demon in question they were looking for… however, judging by how the dot was moving at an easily perceivable speed, it was highly unlikely.

A being of Bill’s tiny size would never be able to move that fast, so what was it? And better yet, if this dot wasn’t Bill, then why on earth wasn’t it picking him up in the first place?

He allowed himself to briefly ponder over the questions before directing his attention back down to his brother, who was patiently waiting to be given directions on what direction to head so they could get this over with as quickly as possible. He kind of got the impression from the look on Stanley’s face that voicing this information would only make the man far angrier than he was already. So he lied. Well, _sorta_.

“Right, he should be on the island in… ...that direction,” He instructed, moving to hold the piece of high-tech equipment in one hand and used his now free one to point in the direction he was referring to.

Stanley only offered a short grunt in response as he adjusted the ship's rudder in the correct direction, attempting to start the motor a couple more times before it coughed back to life. Stanford momentarily shifted himself to a more stable standing position as he felt the boat start to move under him, not wishing to make more of a fool of himself than he already had and fall over.

The island in question was the one the twins, along with Soos, had gone to while on their one time trip to try and catch a monster for a shared profit - which Dipper had proudly informed Stanford of during one of their extended sessions of D,D and more D. He could only wish this situation would resolve itself in a similar fashion, him and his family - and Bill - achieving some good old ‘family bonding’ which would somehow fix everything.

He would make this better. He _had to_. Fourty years of hurt and lies were already way too long, adding another year wouldn’t help anybody.

* * *

“Sooooo, a question for the sake of curiosity, why’d you decide to hide in a lake?” Asked Bill as they emerged from the water, water dripping down from the rim of his top hat and onto 8-Balls fingers. It was a meaningless question, sure, but walking in an awkward silence only served to start making Bill feel rather bored. Boring silence may have been something he’d started to grow used to while in Stanford’s possession but he didn’t plan on continuing that trend willingly. No, he enjoyed the sound of his own voice too much for that.

“I mean you did say the lake didn’t have much food, right? Why stay?”

His question was only met will a low uninterested grunt as 8-Ball took a moment to stretch himself out, his bones clicking audibly due to their lack of proper used use in recent days. It irked him at bit that he was essentially being ignored by one of his own, that something told the other monster that he didn’t need to prioritize Bill’s curiosity at all. Who did he think he was? He was an idiot being asked a question by someone superior. He should care somewhat.

“…It was the closest safe place I found and I thought that, you know, those big ‘shark’ and ‘whale’ things would be in there for me to eat.” His companion grumbled lowly, seeming rather displeased which the decision he’d ultimately made for whatever reason. “But they weren’t, and once I got in I couldn’t get out since there were a bunch of humans running around nearby, they even **_tried to lure me in with food attached to string. So I took the string and food just to stick it to ‘em._ ** ”

Huh, so that had been the monster swimming around yanking rods into the lake. He supposed he should be somewhat thankful 8-Ball hadn’t spotted him and Ford on the end of their rod when he pulled it in. Considering how angry he seemed to be about the idea people might be trying to catch him, Bill had no doubt in his mind he would have taken it poorly.

“So you haven’t eaten anything good in weeks then. Bet you wished you didn’t need to eat like me, huh?” Bragged bill proudly, lightly nudging the guys hand with one of his tiny elbows in a slight passive aggressive manner to try and get more attention. He didn’t care if it annoyed him, it would serve him right for being rude.

8-Ball didn’t seem amused, only grunting as response. Bill glanced up at him only to be met with an unblinking gaze that seemed to look straight through him. Right, to 8-Ball food wasn’t a laughing matter, but… usually he’d put up with Bill’s jokes because he knew better than to get angry. Maybe being alone for weeks and slowly starving, combined with how small Bill now was, had killed his tolerance. Bill almost regretted saying anything.

Bill shifted in his palm, “Alright, alright, geez, get a sense of humor.” He hissed lowly at him, trying to seem just as threatening as he’d once been when he wasn’t fun sized. It didn’t work, unsurprisingly, 8-Ball’s eyes only starting to narrow slowly as he seemed to begin catching onto what was going on. It was his own fault, really. Had he still had his powers his reaction probably would have been to slap the guy and tell him to stop being such a baby. Maybe changing the subject and setting his plan into motion would act as a good distraction for this.

“Right. Anyway, onto more important stuff other than your fragile ego, lets get the others to bring their asses over here.” He closed his eye, pretending to concentrate as, instead, his mind wandered elsewhere. By this point it was clear 8-Ball wasn’t going to play the good obedience buddy much longer without some kind of reason to, like, say, being offered a big meal if he behaved. Which would be simple enough once he got his powers back, it was just a matter of keeping him in check until then. The others, however, would probably be less willing to accept such an offering of food and lies, especially Pyronica. He had no doubt they’d all be relatively peeved the heck off at his failure and the repercussions of their actions. Yeah, that was not going to be fun to deal with.

After waiting long enough to make it look like he’d really tried, Bill looked up, eye curving upwards in a fake smile as he flat out lied, “Huh… Now that's odd. It seems like I’m not reaching anyone at all, how strange…”

8-Ball’s expression darkened considerably as he leaned his face closer to Bill,Looking directly into his single eye. “What do you mean?” He questioned lowly, grip starting to tighten around Bill as he began to lose his patience.

“What I mean is that someone is blocking the signal, you know, messing with the mind waves? It’s probably that guy with the six fingers.” Said Bill, completely bull-shitting the way his telekinetic powers worked before dumping the blame of his failure on someone else. He went to continue with what he was saying, explain how they could fix the situation, before he felt the grip around him get far tighter, causing him to briefly let out a sort of high pitched yelp. “H-hey, loosen the grip a little, will ya?! If I had lungs you’d be crushing them!”He demanded angrily, vainly hoping that the creature was only doing this accidentally because he, too, at this point was angry at Stanford. One look up at his ‘pal’s’ face, however, dashed those hopes entirely, causing a wave of brief panic to wash for him as he realized what was going through the guy’s head.

“You've been lying to me. You're as weak as a fleshy human!” 8-Ball growled lowly as he began to lift Bill up higher so that he was greeted with a more familiar view of 8-Ball below him. “Which means I won’t get any food!”

Really? Did it not cross the guy’s mind he could maybe hunt for stuff himself? Probably not, considering his utter stupidity. At this point that didn’t matter, if Bill suggested that it would only confirm that he was basically powerless and he had no doubt in his mind that, upon finding out his all-powerful leader had lost all his power …well… He’d probably be dealing with mutiny and a mild case of death. Such was the way seizing leadership worked for demons and monsters like them.

“Relax big guy, no, seriously relax, if you keep getting all fired up and start leaking energy everywhere then Sixer’s gonna notice and come after us.” Bill hissed in response, trying to reason with him some. Getting killed wasn’t exactly something he wanted after all, much less at the hands of someone under him. It’d be like if Darth Vader had been killed by a storm trooper.

8-Ball, however, didn’t seem keen on listening to reason, face scrunching up a little as he breathed a rush of hot air onto Bill's body through his nostrils. Dammit, he was basically dealing with a hungry animal here, of course it wasn’t going to listen to the petty ramblings of something it deemed weak!

“I’ll make this quick,” 8-Ball grumbled out lowly in response, large shiny black eyes remaining fixed on Bill as he began lowering him towards his face and opened his mouth. It took maybe a moment for Bill to process exactly what his former pal was doing before it clicked; the guy was hungry and he had something weak and useless at his fingertips - sure, despite lacking powers, his large bank of knowledge made him pretty darn useful but it was doubtful 8-Ball had considered this. Well, fuck.

He didn’t know what to do, all normal means of protecting himself, such as using his pretty blue flames or manipulating himself and his surroundings, were now not an option _thanks to a certain nerd._ He was going to die, 8-Ball was going to shove him in his mouth and eat him. Would he die instantly or would he get to experience the joy of being broken down by the guy's stomach acid while alive?

No.

He didn’t want to die. He was scared to die.

In a last ditch effort to save himself, he began struggling violently in 8-Balls hand, trying to summon what little strength he had left to force the guy’s hand open so he could try and escape. It didn’t seem to help however as he saw 8-Ball’s mouth start to loom under him.

Damnit.

_Damnit!_

**_DAMNIT_ ** **!**

His movements became purely instinctual then, his newly physical body doing what most animals did when trying to defend themselves. He bit him, hard. The line of bricks just under his bow tie had opened up, briefly revealing a set of rather sharp teeth that produced to swiftly tear into 8-Balls flesh,removing his finger rather painfully. Bill hadn’t even been aware his physical body possessed any kind of mouth as an integrated part of it. Yeah, he’d formed a mouth a few times while he had powers, but he’d always just assumed it had been his ability to shape shift his body at will. Nonetheless, he was rather glad he’d been wrong.

Having obviously not expected the seemly helpless corn chip to deal any noteworthy damage, 8-Ball understandably proceeded to let out a loud pained screech, violently tossing Bill in a random direction to prevent him dealing anymore damage to his hand. It was slightly amusing the big guy didn’t simply try to crush him between his two hands  or just eat him like he’d originally planned. The poor baby. He must have really disliked the pain. He could picture it now, the monster sitting huddled under a tree so he daintily licked his wounds like a hurt puppy. It was a satifying thing to picture.

He didn’t really have that long to focus on the rather amusing image as he collided with one of the nearby trees, the sickening crack of what he assumed to be some part of his frail body breaking, happily accompanied by what only could be described as the feeling of being crushed under two trains. It was pretty freaking painful. His body then proceeded to tumble to the ground, his fall being thankfully broken by the bush directly below.

 He laid there for a moment, dizziness plaguing his mind from the rather intense pain that was now blooming from his right side. He didn’t want to move and risk making it hurt more, but laying there with 8-Ball so close probably wasn’t a good idea. He could come back over and eat him again. Bill needed to get up and run.

Bill forced himself up onto his shaky legs, wobbling unsteadily for a moment before he moved to press his right hand against the tree to balance himself. Big mistake. The moment he put weight on it he felt the pain present in his little body spike through him with greater intensity. He hissed and recoiled, bringing his arm close to his body. Well, then. Now he knew what the snapping sound had been.

Without hesitation, he started running in the opposite direction to where he assumed he’d come from. He stayed in the woods for some form of cover but tried to keep the shoreline in his line of view, forming the small hope that he might spot Stanford and his dumb twin.

This was pathetic. Out of all the things he’d found himself doing and putting up with, there was no doubt in his mind that this was the most embarrassing. To think, after purposely making Stanford’s life a living hell with the intention of amusing himself for a brief time only to presently find himself desperate for his assistance. He hated the idea, shortly considering if escaping on his own and regaining his powers was at all possible with his current injuries and general feebleness. It was unrealistic and the chances of such a situation ending in a favourable manner for him were rather unlikely. But….

He let out an irritated sigh, starting to make more of an effort to stay low and out of sight as he felt his body slowly begin to relax, allowing the sharp pain in his right arm to slowly take up more of his attention. It wasn’t too bad, at worst it was a distracting sensation that was making it somewhat difficult to focus on his surroundings. While this made avoiding all the small branches and thorns inside the bushes he was running through rather difficult, getting a few scratches opposed to getting eaten and killed made it something not exactly complaint worthy, at least not right now.

Eventually, he found himself staggering to a shaky halt, legs refusing to continue forward any longer as he softly plopped down beside a tree, being careful not to bump his arm while doing so. This was an ironic turn of events he supposed, chasing his victims until they no longer had the energy nor motivation to escape him was usually his role. Not that he’d seen any indication that 8-Ball was following him at all, maybe he really had gone and hidden to lick his wounds… Nah, unlikely. After having his finger bitten off he should be pretty pissed. Maybe he’d taken a hint and decided to leave him alone, or was simply struggling to actually find him. Yeah, the latter sounded more likely.

Oh well. At least that meant he actually had some time to sit and catch his breath without having to worry about impending doom. To best make use of his time, he decided to take the chance to fully assess the extent of his own injuries. After all, it wasn’t really any good for him to continue running around looking for help if his injuries would slowly kill him in the process for doing so.

The obvious place to start was obviously his right arm. He tried stretching it out but quickly recoiled it in pain. Definitely broken. Maybe Stanford could wrap it up or make some nerdy thing to fix it. Now, if he had his damned _powers_ that had been _taken from him_ he could heal it in a cinch - it would literally be as easy as snapping his fingers. Hell, if he had his powers none of this would’ve happened. If he had his powers 8-Ball wouldn’t have tried to eat him and even if he had, Bill could’ve just watched him burn in beautiful blue flames and laughed.

He would’ve never fallen in the lake, either.

And who’s fault had that been? Also Stanford’s.

If it hadn’t been for Stanford, he’d be sitting on his throne with a margarita in one hand as he contently watched humanity crumble under his rule. He’d be happy… ...As mad as he’d love to be at Stanford, the guy was his only hope right now. So, Bill had to suck it up for now instead of focusing on what could’ve been.

He lightly ran his good hand over his body, searching for any other major injuries he might have sustained. From what he could see and feel, it appeared he only had a few rough scrapes and bruises, nothing he couldn’t easily heal from. His bricks expanded and then contracted back together with a deep sigh of relief he gave. Good. Having his arm broken was humiliating enough, the idea of having a deep cut or noticeable crack that would scar his body permanently was almost too much for his ego to handle.

...

He really should keep moving, just in case his dim-witted former friend managed to actually find him. He briefly attempted to do so too, but his body felt heavy, like he was carrying a load of bricks. It was an unusual feeling, something he’d never particularly felt before in the billions of years he’d been alive - which probably had something to do with the fact he’d never needed sleep until recently either. He was tired and it made him feel disgustingly human.

But, just taking a break for a little while longer to regain his strength couldn’t hurt too much could it? It was, after all, doubtful he’d be able to move much further regardless and he was pretty out of sight where he was sitting.vHe didn’t really have the chance to consider it much more than that, eye starting to droop slowly until it closed. Just, taking a moment to regain his strength wasn’t going to worsen the situation any more than it already was.

* * *

It felt like he’d only had his eyes closed for a moment when suddenly a large snapping sound startled him awake. For a moment he was convinced 8-Ball had found him and it was over for him, his tiny body immediately tensing up as he quickly glanced at his surroundings in a rather paranoid manner. The forest seemed exactly the same as the last time he’d seen it. He glanced around again just to make sure, second guessing himself momentarily as he yet again saw nothing new. He must have just been hearing things, 8-Ball couldn’t have caught up with him just yet, paranoia was probably just starting to get to him a little. Yeah, that's probably what it was. The noise had probably just been some woodland creature.

Bill was, of course, wrong. Not a moment after he’d began to relax he was graciously treated to the sight of a smooth triangular barrel of a gun being pointed right in his face. At first, he moved to run, escape from the danger that stared down at him until he noticed the gun actually looked rather familiar.

Oh.

Briefly, he debated on how to react to this. While he wanted to give the human a piece of his mind for losing him then having the nerve to point a weapon at him while he was injured… He knew Stanford would not react very well to that. So in the interest of getting Stanford to help him, he decided to play nice - for now, at least.

“Ah, Stanford, fancy seeing you here.” Bill greeted in the most cheerful manner he could currently manage considering his poor mood, shifting his body with a slight wince as he moved to look around the barrel of the gun and stare directly up at the rather agitated old man behind it.

Stanford of course was about as happy to see Bill as Bill was to see him,only he was far less gracious about at least pretending to be glad  to  see him.No,apparently he felt the proper course of action was to continue pointing his gun at Bill's face.He glanced around momentarily for any signs of a trap before inching forwards,holding his gun steady as he quickly began barking out paranoid questions “How the hell did you get here? Did someone help you? Why aren’t you still in the lake? Was the energy signal I picked up you??”

This reaction was of course to be expected from Stanford. Sure, he’d managed to get Stanford to give him a little freedom but there was still no way in all of hell the guy trusted him not to do something ‘evil’ while out of his field of view, even if technically it was _Stanford's_ fault he had been in the first place. Heck, the guy was probably so busy being a paranoid mess he probably hadn’t taken a moment to look Bill over and acknowledge his injuries yet.What a jerk.

So, like any good con man, Bill was going to use this and play to Stanford’s heroic and ‘just’ ideals which he liked to keep to.

“Eager as always huh Sixer… Just… Could you help me up first? _Please, it's not safe here…_ ” He muttered in a concerned manner, slowly attempting to get up with the use of his broken arm which, of course, caused him to fail and recoil in pain. Acts were more realistic when they held some truth to them, at least.

The look Stanford gave him at that was one of obvious distrust, eyes briefly looking Bill's little nacho body over for a moment as if he were trying to find something to expose this as some kind of trick. His grip tightened on his gun as he seemed to become rather conflicted, opening his mouth to say something before closing it again.

“Come on Ford, just pick the annoying demon chip up and **_let's go_ **. Who cares if he’s lying,” Groaned another voice that Bill presumed came from the other twin, his fez briefly becoming visible from the other side of the tree.Considering his position he was probably acting as lookout.Oh Stanford, e was probably expecting one of Bill's ‘friends’ to just out and attack them the moment he let his guard down. Obviously he didn’t know much about how leadership worked between monsters and other demonic creatures.

“What if that's just what he wants me to do, Stanley? I’m not making a split second decision just because you don’t want to stand there for a few minutes,” Stanford irritably snapped back, evidently not in the mood to be ganged up on by both Bill and Stanford ver 2.

“Oh, gee, you’re right. What if that is just what I want? In fact, it’s almost like _I’m actually asking you to pick me up or something._ Weird, right? So sinister.” Bill added sarcastically,cutting in before Stanley had the chance to give some hurt and angry response to his Brothers rather rude response- the last thing he wanted right now was for the two to start arguing and keep them in possible danger for another two hours. He let his eye shiftily look around in order to really help drive that he was looking out for something. If anything, hopefully Stanford would notice and become far more paranoid about that than actually helping him.

After being essentially cut off from responding Stanley only let out a brief sigh ,his fez disappearing back behind the tree out of Bill's field of view.

Stanford gave him a conflicted look before sighing and shoving his gun back in it’s holster.Good,it at least seemed like the guy was just as predictable as he’d always been.After hesitating for another moment he finally kneeled down and offered a hand to pick him up.Bill’s eye curved up happily; he was saved! Reaching up to Ford with a grabby hand, he held onto his thumb for balance as air rushed past him and was lifted up.The newly place pressure on his right side made him wince a bit in pain but otherwise he tried not to show it too much.

After bringing Bill closer the old scientist was able to get a better look at his little bruised body,eyes narrowing a little with concern before he glanced at their surroundings.It was obvious now that he’d had a chance to calm down about the possiblity of Bill betraying him he was starting to pick up on what was actually going on.“Are you ok? Who or what hurt you?”

Bill only offered him a blank look, eye briefly looking him up and down in slight disbelief. Not only was it a pointless question, but why on earth did Stanford care if he was ok?It felt a little out of character for him,especially after Stanford had tried to kill him not long ago.Hmm,maybe Stanford was starting to _pity_ him ,what a disgusting thought. “My arm, oh, not much, it just got smashed by some angry monster, can we go now?” He said flatly, giving Stanford a light nudge with his good arm to try and encourage him to get going.

In response, Stanford seemed to visibly tense, mind taking a moment to process what Bill had said before he snapped into action. Obviously not wanting to stick around too long to find out if Bill was lying, he moved to place Bill inside his pocket before seeming to realize the possible problem of putting an injured creature inside a small, slightly unstable, space. Hesitating, he tried to consider a better option before simply offering Bill to Stanley in a slightly awkward manner. “Here you hold him. Sorry, but I need to have both hands free in order to use my gun.”

Stanley, understandably, looked less than pleased, obviously not really wanting to play protector of what he saw as ‘literally satan’. He was relatively mature about it however, taking Bill from Stanford with an annoyed grunt before simply holding him in his arms like one would hold a baby. Which was, for Bill, rather aggravating.How dare he.

However none of that was really all that important right now, not when, despite the embarrassment, he was going to be saved and hopefully patched up.

Without a word exchanged between the two men, they began walking, assumably in the direction of the boat they’d used to get to the island in the first place. Judging by the fact that Stanley seemed relatively unsurprised to see Bill despite his previous comments, Bill could only figure that Stanford had run out of options and had been forced to spill the beans. Which was, in a sense, slightly disappointing, not because Stanley knew he was alive but because Bill hadn’t been there to see Stanley’s reaction to being lied to again. Humans didn’t half make for amusing entertainment with their stupid quarrels. It would at least serve to help take his mind off the events that had previously transpired, at least for now.

They must have only been walking for a few minutes when Bill started to become vaguely aware of a rustling sound coming from maybe 100… No, 200 meters away from them. Considering he could actually hear it rather clearly, the source of it was probably…

“Hey, Fordsy, how ready are you to use that gun of yours?” He asked rather casually, shifting his body a little so that he could better look up at him. Considering the humans’ flawed hearing, it was doubtful he had become aware of the noise yet which was a bit of a problem. After all, they wouldn’t have long until they needed to defend themselves.

“...As ready as I always am,” replied Stanford, briefly glancing around before he removed the safety on his gun. Good, all those years stuck in the portal had actually made him good at handling situations like this,unlike before.

Stanley, on the other hand, seemed briefly confused before seeming to get the jist of what was going on. “What, is the monster that hurt you trailing us or something?” He asked. Right, subtlety wasn’t exactly this twin’s thing now was it, nor was keeping secrets, apparently, like the fact that they already knew this information.

“Well, I wouldn’t say he’s trailing us. He’s more just lurking a ways back waiting for Stanford to drop his guard so he can jump in and feast on our flesh, or was,he doesn’t exactly have a reason to do that now.” Bill responded flatly, letting out a soft sigh as he moved to shift into a more comfortable position for what was probably about to happen.

Before Stanley could get his response out, a loud angry roar sounded up from behind them - presumably 8-Ball venting his frustrations at a failed attempt of trying to sneak up on them - before the sound of snapping branches and heavy footsteps filled the air.

“ **BILL!!** ”

Yep, losing a finger really did seem to have shortened the giant morons fuse quite a bit.

Not about to stand by and possibly get crushed and eaten by an enraged monster, Stanley, of course, decided on the obvious option of running away like his life depended on it. Stanford, being the ever prevalent herom fired a few warning shots at 8-Ball’s spindly legs before tailing behind Stanley. The blasts didn’t seem to do much other than piss the hideous beast off more as he swung one of his long arms forwards and cut through the fabric of Stanford’s coat. Coming to the conclusion he was rather under armed to deal with the current threat, Stanford logically decided to take a page from Stanley's book and began simply focusing on fleeing, superior athletic ability allowing him to pass Stanley with ease.

“Whats wrong, Fordsy~? I thought you liked fighting monsters,” Chuckled Bill in an amused manner,enjoying the rare sight of the great Stanford pines running away like a scared little child.Sure focusing on this was just to distract himself from the impending doom approaching but hey it was a funny distraction.

“Oh shut up, like you could do better,” Stanford snapped angrily, not appreciating Bill’s criticisms on his actions. Honestly, the guy was too sensitive in Bill's opinion, he needed learn to take a joke.

“Please you know I could so far better,if it weren’t for you I could just disintegrate him without thinking twice about it”Huffed Bill in retort,his patience with Stanford starting to wear thin after all that had happened today.”Not to mention this wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t dropped me into the goddamn ocean!”

Before Stanford could respond angrily, however, he was interrupted.“I hate to interrupt your couple's argument, but somebody's got to deal with the massive whatever before it rips our heads off!” Blurted out Stanley, breath already heavy as he moved to curtly glance behind him. He was greeted with the same sight Bill was now mostly focused on; 8-Ball easily gaining on them, only being briefly delayed every so often when he had to bash tree’s out of his way. It was clear at this point that Stanley was right, putting their internalized hatred aside and working together was the best option here.

“Right, right, Sixer, take that little lazer gun of yours and try shooting the guy in his weird eyes, they’re small targets sure but destroying both of them should kill him” Bill instructed quickly, using his extensive knowledge of his former best friend’s weaknesses to try and help Stanford effectively save their skins.Sure most people saw murdering friends as immortal but hey, 8-Ball had tried to kill him first,this was self defense and revenge.

“Isn’t there, … A way to subdue and possibly not kill him?” Came a hesitant response from the grey haired hero in front of him.

…Bill really questioned how on earth a nerd like this ever managed to defeat him all those weeks ago. Honestly, he’d rather try and convince himself Stanford had just gotten lucky and he’d personally just been having an off day.

“Are you really more concerned about saving the life of the thing trying to eat us than our own lives, Sixer?” Snapped Bill angrily, temper starting to flare up at the idea that they were all going to die just because Stanford was too chicken to actually kill anything. How on earth did this guy survive between dimensions that long? Heck, this was the morally ambiguous guy who gave kids a mind control tie! Why was he suddenly having an issue with murder in self defense?

“Of course not! I just… I don’t…” Stanford slowly trailed off, some sort of internal conflict going on in his head while he stared down at his gun.

Bill really wanted to just slap him

Before Bill had the chance to properly start giving Stanford a piece of his rather opinionated mind, 8-Ball swung at Stanley, claws slashing long shallow cuts across his lower legs. While the damage itself was rather minor, the pain was enough to cause the old man to stumble and fall. Bill didn’t even have the time to fully process what happened, becoming immediately distracted by the rather intense pain of his broken arm being crushed once again under the weight of a fully grown human being. His eye scrunched up as he let out a pained yelp, large black dots clouding his vision. For a moment he almost thought he was going to die,again.

His vision clouded  completely black for a moment before it slowly started to clear, the weight that had been pressing him down against the ground having now been lifted - when that happened Bill wasn’t sure. Briefly struggling to compose himself, he weakly sat himself up and glanced at his surroundings, trying to deduce exactly what had happened. The sight he was greeted with was actually rather pleasing.

8-Balls body was lying crumpled on the floor about two feet away from him, eye sockets shattered leaving nothing but empty black pits. Stanley was lying down next to him, heavy breaths leaving his chubby human body as he assumably tried to calm himself down after a near death experience. Stanford, on the other hand, was simply standing there, gun pointed at 8-Ball as he seemed to be taking a moment to process exactly what had happened, hands shaking a little.

After restraining himself a moment, Bill allowed a rather gleeful laugh to make its way onto his face as he struggled up onto his feet and walked closer to 8-Ball. He’d forgotten how good it actually felt to win at things and crush his enemies. Well, technically it hadn’t been him who’d crushed 8-Ball but he had provided the information Stanford had used to do so. Either way, he felt incredibly good about himself.

“Hdw vklw dqg urw lq khoo, brx sdwkhwlf zhdnolqj,” He hissed lowly, a smug sneer making its way onto his triangular face as he proceeded to kick 8-Ball’s empty form in the nose. It did nothing, of course, but it still felt good to do.

“Stop that,” Groaned Stanford as he finally seemed to snap back to reality - probably due to the sound of Bill’s obnoxious chuckling as the small triangle lightly danced in his spot. He was a real spoil sport like that, to the extent Bill didn’t really understand. He’d just crushed his enemy with ease, how could he not be feeling proud of himself? Whatever, humans just didn’t seem to get a lot of things like that it seemed. It was a pity really.

“Oh, don’t be like that, we just turned the tables on the thing chasing us and killed it. Aren’t I allowed to be a little happy?” He muttered simply, shifting to prop himself up against 8-Ball’s head.

“Correction… Ford killed it” Sounded Stanley weakly as he appeared to start becoming focused enough to backsass Bill. How irritating. Didn’t this human know better than to sass a demon? Well, it wasn’t like he could do anything about it now but he was definitely going to hold a grudge and get back at Stanley later.

Stanford's expression seemed to briefly twist with pain before it quickly changed to his usual, stoney, flat expression. He shoved his hands in his pockets, muttering, “Whatever. Let’s just go home.”

Bill narrowed his eye at up at him briefly as he tried to discern what exactly was going through the guy's mind, it was obvious his own actions were bothering him but he wasn’t exactly sure why. It might have been because he thought it odd for Bill to take such pleasure in killing something he once called his friend. Humans were always quite insistent friendship was ‘forever’ or something dumb like that. He would have moved to maybe point out Stanford’s hypocrisy considering he had tried to kill Bill himself, who was a former friend too, but the ‘whatever, let’s go’ made it hard to mention without looking like he was only trying to cause trouble. Which, granted, he kind of was, but really he was just more concerned with being right.

So reluctantly he remained silent, not particularly wanting to aggravate stanford while adrenaline was pumping through his body and a gun was in his hands.

Just as he moved to sit himself up and attempt to persuade one of the twins to let him sit comfortably on their head or shoulder, the surface he was leaning against suddenly became unstable and disintegrated under him. Bill fell back into a pile of black dust, or more specifically, a pile of 8-Ball. It wasn’t too surprising, creatures who weren’t originally created with physical forms like he and Bill probably weren’t able to remain physical after death.

Getting covered head to toe in inchy, slightly tingly, black powder, however, was rather irritating. He could feel his blood start to boil a little. Dammit, he should have known that would happen! Now he looked like an idiot.

“Gah, even in death you're still messy as ever.” He glowered, trying to dust the bits of 8-Ball off his body. His little hand didn’t seem be able to remove any of it as it seemed to just stick to his body, only serving to aggravate Bill and cause him to kick one of the large piles of dust and scatter it everywhere in a fit of rage.

“...That is fucking disgusting, stop kicking the dead monster dust everywhere, I really don’t want any in my mouth.” Muttered Stanley as he finally sat up, face looking far more full of life than it had previously after appearing to have caught his breath.

“oH, yeah I can’t **imagine** how disgusting it would be to have that stuff on you, can’t imagine it at all.” Retorted Bill in an over-the-top childish manner, simply kicking more dust just to try and spite Stanley for his dumb request. He didn’t have to listen to him, he didn’t have to listen to anybody! HE WAS BILL CIPHER MASTER OF THE MIND, THE INVINCIBLE! THE FEARLESS! HE WASN’T GONNA TAKE BACKSASS FROM ANY FILTHY HUMAN.

During his little tantrum, Stanford let out a long tired sigh and simply picked Bill up before gently placing him back inside his coat pocket where he’d been originally. “Behave, we’ll give you a bath when we get home.” He murmured, attention appearing to be elsewhere as he failed to process the problem with putting Bill in his pocket with a broken arm.

Unhappy with this, Bill proceeded to shift around rebelliously until the pain it caused in his arm became a little too unbearable. Eventually, Bill slowly did what he was told and simply curled up in his place, low ancient curse words leaving him as he began to stroke his damaged pride.

Soon, the sounds of the boat's motor registered in his ears, the slight bobbing of himself and the pocket confirming they had finally gotten back to the boat. He didn’t bother to check out the hole in the side of the pocket to make sure, the effort of moving himself just to see something he could already roughly guess wasn’t all that appealing right now. Not while he felt...  like… ...like… …a complete and utterly pathetic loser. It was a given, really, considering he’d just had to rely on a duo of half brained morons to save his life because he was unable to himself, not to mention how unfazed Stanford had been at his little outburst. He should have been shaking in fear.

He curled up just a little bit more and tired to push the thoughts to the back of his mind, reminding himself that there was still hope… He… He could still fix all this and get back to his glorious old self. Then everything would be back to the way it had been before. Right?

No, the likelihood he’d even be able to come close to how he’d been before was incredibly slim, as much as he hated to admit it, he had no clue what Stanford had done to him or if it was even something he COULD fix. Knowing Stanford, it probably wasn’t. He was going to be stuck like this until the end of time, possibly being passed down from Pines to Pines until the universe itself simply ceased to be. Speaking honestly, he felt he’d rather die than have to endure _this_ for that long, three weeks already felt far too long.

…Thinking about it like that really wasn’t helping at all.

Not wanting to dwell on such negative subjects for too long, he gently flexed his good hand and wiggled his fingers, vaguely wishing he could use his magic to set the pocket on fire and better express his repressed frustration and anger. Burning things always seemed to help him relax, maybe Stanford would be willing to let him borrow a lighter briefly once they got back to the Shack in exchange for something. He’d offer up his dignity in exchange but it seemed Stanford had already helped himself to that.

He felt anger starting to boil inside him as he thought of his six-fingered capturer. The guy felt the need to constantly take the high ground, acting as if everything he did was for the good of those around him instead of the reality of his selfish personality. What he hated the most, however, the thing that really aggravated him to his very core, was how the human liked to victimize himself and avoid taking the blame. Like, the guy's brother spent thirty years trying to get him back, yet Stanford still felt the need to argue he was a terrible brother. He’d bring up the one “Science Fair” event that did _not_ , in fact, ruin his life, or how he liked to bring up the fact that Bill had ‘made’ him create the portal which was a complete lie; he’d simply given him the option to. Honestly, how weak of a mortal being did you have to be in order to be unable to handle the very idea of your mistakes being your _own fault_.

The fact that someone like that had effectively outsmarted him was the part that really pushed his buttons. Someone that dumb had outsmarted him.

For a moment, he felt himself get a little too carried away in his sulking, the urge to try and stab at Ford with his sharp little fingers to cause some damage rising inside him as he let out a low hiss.

It was then that his attention was suddenly yanked away from his current petty hatred and instead refocused on his hand, noticing a few faint blue sparks coming from it in some weak attempt to create the flames he wanted. He stared at it blankly for a moment before the gears in his mind began to slowly start to turn, processing what this meant.

He was covered head to toe in the remains of the physical manifestation of an energy-based being. His powers worked off of said energy.

Interesting.

So that's what Stanford had done.

Slowly, his eye began to curve upwards into sly grin, producing a few more sparks from his hand before he returned to holding his broken arm. He could work with this.


	5. Fixing What's Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford tries to fix things he's screwed up on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait in the chapter! Hope you guys enjoy the chapter and think the wait was worth it. ^~^

“Ow! Be careful, you're gonna make it worse than it already is at this rate!” Bill flinched a little when Ford shifted his broken arm some, briefly glaring up at the guy.

“Oh, I’m sorry, would you rather I stop?  I can just leave it unwrapped and let it heal incorrectly if you want.” Ford’s reply was rather snarky, rolling his eyes up from the injury to meet Bill’s gaze. Bill felt his good fist clench out of irritation and some slightly pent up anger. Ever since they’d gotten back-. No. Ever since the whole thing with saving Bill, Ford had been acting like a real dick. He kept dropping little passive-aggressive comments and just… sort of being an asshole in general. This usually wouldn’t bother Bill except for the fact that he was tired from having been more or less hunted down by an old thought-to-be friend. 

Was he still salty about the fishing trip earlier? Or had all that quality time with his twin brother just ruined his mood and he was thus seeking an outlet? Regardless of his reason, Bill really wasn’t digging the snark coming from him, usually it was kinda cute the way Stanford hated him but now that it was causing him physical harm it wasn’t so much. Honestly, you help save a guy's life from one of your ex-friends and he repays you by being a sassy asshole. How on earth did heroes keep up the motivation to keep doing good?

Letting out a small huff, he proceeded to look away, deciding not to bother giving a response and allowed Stanford to go back to patching up his arm. Because of the large size difference, he supposed Stanford's rough handling of his injured limb could be put down to him not knowing his own strength, but from Stanford’s sarcastic responses and unwillingness to be more gentle he rather doubted it. Why the heck did Stanford wanna hurt him, huh? Bill had behaved pretty well for the entire fishing trip/near death experience as far as Stanford was currently aware.

He didn’t really have much longer to consider the matter as his trail of thought was cut short by a sudden sharp sensation of pain in his right arm, causing him to instinctively flinch and try to pull away from the cause.

“Relax, you big baby, I just finished wrapping it,” Came Stanford's gruff voice in quick response, starting to put all the bandages and other such things back in the first aid kit he’d gotten out to treat Bills wounds. The guy might have tried to play it off like it had just been a necessary part of the process but Bill knew, Oh, Bill knew that this was just Stanford trying to spite him for something. And as much as it pissed him off, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, nothing that would change anything at least.

Man, being weak and helpless sucked ass. He supposed on the bright side of things he wouldn’t have to worry about permanently losing function in his right arm to any degree now.

Not particularly wanting to allow Stanford the sweet satisfaction of knowing that he was succeeding in pissing him off - and slightly hurting his feelings - Bill replied with a simple “Thank you.” Turning his attention away from the human, he inspected the bandage tightly wrapped around his arm and the sling it had been placed in. The security of the bandages and cast looked pretty good, a little messy but it seemed like it would at least hold for a little while.

“I must say, I’m impressed you know how to do something like this. Actually, considering how much of a walking accident you are, I’m not actually that surprised,” He noted in a mostly casual manner, forcing his attention away from how annoyed he felt in the hopes that stating a casual conversation would help Stanford relax and, to put it bluntly, stop being a complete  asshole. However, Bill’s unconsciously rude attitude really didn’t help with this.

So, of course, upon hearing himself seemingly being made fun of for being a complete klutz, Stanford reacted accordingly.

“Actually,  _ Bill _ , years of being trapped in dangerous alternate universes struggling to survive taught me pretty quickly how to fix serious injuries,” The man replied rather bitterly, his expression darkening considerably as he got up and went to put the first-aid kit back under the bed where it had been located before. Bill supposed it was at least a little understandable he was still peeved off about the portal and being stuck in it for thirty years but, hey, that hadn’t been his fault. That had been Stanley’s fault.

He paused a moment, trying to think of what to say in order to lighten the mood and possibly get on Stanford's good side again. “Says the guy who literally sets fire to his own face instead of shaving, which I applaud by the way. It seems fun,” Replied Bill as he let out a slightly fake sounding chuckle - it wasn’t exactly easy to pretend to be relaxed when you were actually super pissed off. This was a nice comment, right? He was showing an interest in something Stanford liked and was engaging in a little good old fashioned ‘banter.’ Humans liked that, right?

He didn’t really have to wonder for long as Stanford simply didn’t bother responding this time, fishing around in some of his drawers before he pulled out some sort of modern fiction book. Right, Stanford liked to read to distract himself when something was bothering him - or at least that was what Bill had been able to gather after knowing him for over thirty years. How annoying. Instead of facing the problem head-on like Bill always did, he was simply being a sissy about the whole thing and trying to ignore the problem, which, of course, simply made more issues.  _ Smart move, Sixer, smart move. _

“Right, so let me ask just one thing. What on earth’s your problem here? I haven’t done anything wrong yet, heck, I even helped you get rid of one of my no good friends.” Bill asked bluntly, having come to the conclusion that waltzing around the subject and complaining to himself about it wasn’t exactly going to make Stanford man up and tell him what was wrong. Sure, asking probably wouldn’t either but hey, at least he could say he tried then.

He was correct. Stanford seemed to brush the topic off, instead contenting himself to sit back in a chair and open the book up to the first page and begin reading. Bill felt himself color briefly with anger. Why did humans have to be so difficult? Why couldn’t they just yell what was wrong and be over with it rather than dragging out the whole situation? Sure, some of them did but, oh, it was seen as ‘immature’ and ‘rude,’ what a joke.

Fine, if Stanford was going to be difficult he’d just have to coax a reaction out of him the old fashioned way.

“Right, what else was I expecting from the coward who almost let us get ripped apart by a monster. Go on, continue ignoring your problems, smart guy.” He sighed in a sarcastic manner as he shifted to move into a far more comfortable position on his chest rather casually. “I mean, who caaaares if your hesitation is the reason why your brothers downstairs bandaging him legs, at least you get to say you cared somewhat about the thing trying to eat us, right?”

Of course all the talk about his brother and being a coward got a reaction out of him, considering how much of a chip in his shoulder he had about his relationship with the guy Bill would have been flabbergasted if he hadn’t at least shot him an angry look. Stanford did not, however, simply shoot him an angry look. No, the guy whirled around, dropping the book he was currently reading onto the sheets next to him as he shot what Bill could only describe as an ‘I want to end you’ look.

“Well maybe, Bill, making split-second decisions about killing something such as that comes to most naturally.” He growled in response, looking like how was about to lose his shit any moment. Bill had to say, it was hard not to simply burst out laughing at what was essentially a giant - somewhat douchey - fluffy owl trying to be intimidating. It was adorable really.

“Oh please, the only reason you were conflicted momentarily was because you got all caught up in your humanly twisted idea of ‘moral’ and ‘oh no, if I do this I might be a bad guy.’” Bill scoffed in response. Like really, it had been a real simple choice that involved him aiming a gun and pulling the trigger like he had countless times before. Heck, the guy had tried to kill him that way once yet here he was acting like murder was something only bad people did. Like really, what a hypocrite.

“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t want to be a terrible person unlike  _ some people _ , maybe I want to be a good person who does good things,” Stanford snapped back.

“HAH, you a good person? After you tried to make Dipper think that Mabel was holding him back? After you burned that symbol onto your brother? After you treated your brother like a burden for years and did THIS to me?” He burst out laughing at that point before he sneered up at the old man. “If that's what counts as a ‘good person’ to you then you must be taking a page out of my book, buddy.”

“SHUT UP!”

What happened next was a bit of a surprise. Stanford picked up the book he’d been previously reading and threw it at Bill, missing him by maybe half an inch, knocking off his top hat before it slammed into the wall behind him. Instinctively he flinched, shifting his body just a little to try and protect his broken arm. The last thing he needed was for it to get even more broken.

After hesitantly turning round to look up at the guy, fully expecting to see him glaring daggers at him he saw something else; regret. Stanford looked like he’d just accidentally punched a weak newborn kitten - which sorta felt a little insulting. But before he had the chance to ask him ‘what the hell is your damage’ Stanford proceeded to quickly get up and leave the room, slamming the door behind him, effectively running the heck away from his problems once again.

Great.

Letting out a small sigh, Bill decided to simply let him go and brood for a while over the nature of morality and what was good and bad, deciding to instead look for his top hat that had been knocked off.

After a little while he found it under the book Stanford had thrown, all crumpled up and bent from the force of the book crushing it.

Bill felt like screaming. 

____________

God dammit.

Allowing himself to be goaded into giving that… that menace the reaction he’d wanted had already been bad enough, but taking a step over the line and getting physical was something Stanford felt almost ashamed of. Sure, he hadn’t exactly broken Bill’s other arm or something, and granted it could be argued that the demon would have deserved it had the book actually hit its intended target. Yet… Gah, maybe it was just the demon’s newfound vulnerability that made him feel bad. Given, the guy was an inhuman monster, but he had technically helped him and his brother escape a possible bad time.

It was almost laughable that he even considered the little triangle’s self-preservation-based helpfulness a reason to feel bad about trying to hurt him. Had this been ten to twenty years ago, he had no doubt that he would have been more than willing to personally snap the Dorito into little pieces regardless. It would have been a rather satisfying to finally get him back for all those sleepless, paranoia filled nights and physical anguish he had to go through in order to install the metal plate in his head – yeah, that hadn’t been fun.

But that had been then and this was now, a lot of things had changed since then; he had grandkids to take care of and set a good example for, he was old and lacked a lot of the previous energy he’d had to really give a shit and getting to blast the demon into large yellow chunks with one of his experiments (which, for a time, had convinced him that he’d finally killed Bill) had helped let out a lot of his pent up aggression. Thus, all that was left at this point was a lingering dislike for the demon and the desire to keep him at least somewhat unhappy, if not only to get back at him for how violently unhappy he’d made Stanford with all his lies and actions.

He supposed, in a sense, that was a rather petty thing for him to do but he justified it to himself by pointing out that the demon actually really did have it coming. Even if it meant he’d have to deal with Bills complaints and insults because of it.

So then, if he could justify that to himself, why couldn’t he justify this? If anything the demon deserved broken arms just as much as he deserved to be unhappy.

Stanford supposed it was possible seeing the demon in his pathetically weak state had made him a bit soft… But at the same time…

Yeah, the last thing he wanted to admit to himself was that he’d gone soft on the universe’s probably biggest inhuman monster. This was the guy who had warnings written about him on cave walls. This was the guy who’d lied to him for years just to get him to make a portal for him to use, not to mention that fact that he’d tried to destroy the world. This was the last… thing in the world that deserved even a shred of his pity.

In fact, he felt partially mad at himself for not hating the piece of geometry more than he currently did. Heck, he’d… he’d acted more rude and unhelpful towards Stanley than he did towards Bill. That wasn’t a good sign, not at all. What was wrong with him?

Stanford exhaled slowly as he pressed his hands into his pockets, trudging forwards on the walk he’d decided to take in order to clear his head a little bit. Yeah, he didn’t seem to be staying on track with his objective here very well - all he had achieved was making himself more self conscious and paranoid at his own behavior.

Maybe Bill was right about him being a terrible person. Yeah he’d always been vaguely aware he used morally questionable means to achieve his objectives but in his mind it had always been for the greater good, the actions of a hero. But maybe he was just biased, desperately trying to see himself in a positive light in order to make himself feel better about the fact that he didn’t mind crossing certain lines. That fact had been troubling him a lot recently ever since he’d first placed Bill inside the jar after an incident he’d rather not remember seeing as it had.. Well… made him question his own morality. Thus why he’d had such trouble gunning down 8-Ball previously.

It was a pretty complex question and it hadn’t been one Stanford had ever particularly asked himself before. He’d always just… been confident in his own ability to know what the best thing was so originally he’d never really bothered questioning himself on if he was doing the right thing. Sure, that night after the incident with Fiddleford he’d spent the whole night pondering the subject but he quickly discarded the topic to instead direct all his anger and confusion at Bill, blaming the whole thing on him.

He needed to try and take responsibility for his actions instead of hiding his failures and trying to pretend they were someone else’s fault. The fact that he’d hidden the rift and his previous partnership with Bill from everybody except Dipper had been a huge mistake, it had been what had lead to the rift getting broken and Bill entering their dimension in the first place. After thirty years he’d allowed himself to make another careless mistake just because he’d tried to do things almost completely alone, something which had stemmed from his fear of the incident that had originally trapped him inside another dimension and Bill. People… People were just hard to trust…

…Maybe that was why he was so frustrated with himself for lashing out. Bill had originally only been trying to start a conversation, yet Ford had twisted it into an argument because he’d been angry at him. Bill had actually sorta been being friendly for the first time since… since they worked together and his first response was to be overly horrible to him. There was always the chance that it had probably just been Bill trying to get on good terms with him to later stab him in the back but, having him around would be a lot more tolerable if they were on at least decent terms. And yet, here he was punishing him for it… and just maybe, a little bit, Stanford vainly hoped that the ‘muse’ he’d worked with for all those years had been at least not a whole lie.

It was something stupidly unrealistic and pathetic to wish for but, out of everyone in his life, he’d felt like Bill was the first person he could truly trust. Ha, how ironic that he would turn out to be the world's biggest liar and asshole. Bill wouldn’t change, if anything he was probably just waiting for Stanford to die before he moved to try and gain power to attempt finishing what he started. Ford knew he’d have to try and take steps to prevent that. But, for now at least, there was no reason to be getting angry and yelling at him. All it would do is make this situation worse for the both of them.

This was all pretty much straight, logical conclusions he’d already come to. So then why had he still gotten mad at Bill? Yes, as he previously mentioned, this could all be a big plan of Bill’s, but it didn’t explain getting angry at him. Heck, it hurt his chances of noticing suspicious behavior if Bill started avoiding him. So what was it that Bill had said before they got home that just… pissed him off that much?

Well, about 90% of what came out of Bill’s… ...what Bill _said_ was intentionally aggravating or at least somewhat irritating to listen to, but for the most part Stanford had managed to brush most of the comments off over the last few weeks. So, it was reasonable to think it might have instead been something Bill had done instead. But, as far as Stanford knew, so far Bill had only fallen in the lake, gotten attacked by his former friend, then helped Stanford kill said friend.

Given, he’d been pretty damn pissed off when Bill had suddenly gone missing, but in retrospect that had mostly been his own fault for jumping the gun and getting too excited about a potential monster hunt, so if anything all that anger was more directed at himself for being too careless.

Another possibility was that he was mad at Bill for being so easily able to kill someone he’d considered his comrade, his friend. Evidently, the guy was an insane lunatic, but Stanford had always thought he at least somewhat cared for his friends considering the trouble he had been going to just to throw a party. No, the party had probably just been for Bill's own amusement. His so called ‘friends’ had probably just been invited to actually make it a party and not Bill sitting there drinking alone. Was that the thing that had bothered him? The fact that Bill didn’t care about friends, so by default their previous friendship had been a complete lie? No, probably not. He’d mostly come to terms with that fact years ago, even if he was still slightly in denial. 

So that just left….

Was… Was he really mad at Bill for getting his ass beaten by a clearly far stronger opponent? That was such a stupid reason - of course Bill had a broken arm he was the equivalent of a little china doll right now, regardless of how much the triangle loved to big himself up. Heck, Bill had probably been talking back, threatening to kill 8-Ball when his arm had been broken, knowing him. Honestly, why did Bill bother aggravating people like that? It was like he was asking to get destroyed and it was annoying.

Wait. Oh... God dammit.

He was partially angry because Bill was a stupid asshole and wasn’t doing anything to keep himself safe - as far as he could tell. He was more so mad because Bill had gotten hurt quite badly after being left alone for maybe half an hour. Dammit, this meant he actually did care about Bill’s safety. Which was kinda ironic considering he’d blasted him full of holes and broken him apart not too long ago. Maybe he just didn’t want to feel partly responsible for the death of someone he once called ‘friend.’ Sure, he’d been convinced he wanted him dead before but after actually almost doing it his opinion had changed. He’d found murdering something intellegent was different from killing a dumb animal.

And maybe, after spending years of trying to get back at him and foil his plans, it hurt his ego a little bit to think that Bill could be roughed up so easily by someone else other than Stanford. He was the all-powerful force Stanford had spent most of his life hating, and having the image of that changed so suddenly made things… confusing and somewhat painful what with all his new thoughts and ideals, coupled with his stubbornness to completely let go of this image.

Yeah, he would need to head back and apologize to Bill for all of this wouldn’t he? Keeping them in permanently bad terms wouldn’t exactly be in his favor, seeing as it would make his job harder and the last thing he needed was a conflict in interests. Besides, having Bill be mad and insulting towards him for the next thirty to forty years wasn’t exactly something Stanford felt he could realistically deal with without literally going insane.

Returning his attention to his the present, Stanford instantly became painfully aware he’d walked quite a distance into the forest without even noticing. Great, he supposed he was lucky it wasn’t nighttime else this surely would have ended badly. He briefly glanced around and took a closer look at his surroundings to better get his bearings before he turned around and headed in the direction he knew the shack was in.

\---

The back door creaked loudly as he opened it to let himself in, giving Stanford the much needed reminder that he really needed to get around to having a word with the handy man, Soos. The man appeared nice enough but, as far as actually being helpful went, the guy seemed to actually break more things than he actually fixed. If he was honest, he wasn’t even sure if Soos was human, but that was a theory for another time.

In the interest of not having Stan getting on his back about tracking mud everywhere like he’d accidentally done a few times before, Stanford awkwardly tried to balance on one leg to try and remove the boot on his leg. Yeah, he could probably sit down and do it but that would waste time. After struggling for a few minutes he managed to get both boots off without falling over, starting to head toward the stairs so he could head up and have a conversation he was  _ totally _ looking forward to having with Bill. Luckily for Stanford, a convenient distraction presented itself.

“So, enjoy your walk, Sixer?”

Stanley was sitting in his chair, legs propped up against the foot rest with the med kit lying against its side. Right,Stanley's legs had been hurt, hadn’t they.

“I suppose, it gave me the time I needed to think about things.” He muttered a little plainly back, unsure if he wanted to start a conversation after how disastrous the fishing trip had been - or more importantly how much of an insensitive selfish jerk he must of seemed like. Stanford didn’t want to show this uncertainty, however he… as much as he cared about Stanley, his paranoia still told him to ‘trust no one.’

Which was, of course, a problem considering he’d promised to talk this all out once they got back.

Stanley stretched then before he shifted to more comfortably face his twin brother, eyes narrowing as he attempted to make eye contact. “So, are you going to explain what the fuck’s going on or am I going to have to take a stab in the dark here?” He asked rather bluntly, annoyance rather clear in his tone. Stan knew him rather well, after all. He probably knew this was something Stanford was going to try and avoid talking about if he found himself able to.

There was silence for a moment, before finally.

“Right, um, just make sure you're comfortable because this is probably going to take a while,” Stanford finally responded with a slightly awkward chuckle. Admitting his failures and personal feelings like this to someone other than Dipper was going to be hard. He supposed it was sort of ironic, since as far as he could remember people usually didn’t trust children with possibly relationship-destroying information. But, then again, while Stanley could be rather selfish and, well, rather irrational at times, he’d always stuck up and tried to help him when they were younger.

With that, Stanley simply leaned back, crossing his arms and looking up at Stanford in an expectant manner.

“.....Ok, so, first things. First, I originally didn’t mean to get your hopes up over the fishing trip thing, Bill was pretending to be me just to try and screw with things between us.” Stanford noted quickly, feeling that it was the most important thing to get out of the way before he said anything else.

“Yeah great, get to the point where you tell me why you lied to my face,” Came a blunt response.

“Right… So, originally I thought Bill was, like I said before,  _ dead. _ ” He started. “It was a sound conclusion; after all, I’d blasted him into a bunch of triangular shaped pieces. But, after um… A few unfortunate events while I was… studying some of the chucks of physical energy that came from his body, I discovered he was in fact alive.”

“So, basically while studying his corpse you suddenly found out he was alive? Let's gloss over the fact that you were playing with a dead body and get to the important part, why did you keep this from me. What? Did you think I’d be too stupid to understand?” Growled Stanley lowly as he glared at him. Right, Stanley had always had a chip on his shoulder about being seen as ‘stupid,’ kinda like how he’d always had one about his six fingers. Yeah, he was going to have to word this carefully.

“Stanley, I don’t think you're stupid, I didn’t tell you because I wanted to contain the information. The less people who know he’s alive the better, because if anyone in town finds out everyone will  _ panic _ . If anything were to slip, even if just by accident, it would be very bad. Not only that, but if people in the town were to find out, it’s - er, well, it still is - very likely his old friends would come looking for him and cause trouble, eventually leading to destroying the town again.” He held his hands behind his back out of habit as he explained himself, feeling a bit self conscious as he feared Stanford might react badly again like last time. Was he being too honest? Did he need to sugar coat it more than he already had?

His brother’s glower seemed to soften a tad, appearing to understanding. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in a slightly irritated manner before he looked up, “Look, Stanford… I’m your brother. You can  _ trust me _ . If I kept the portal under wraps for thirty years, don’t you think I can handle a secret about Bill?”

He… Had a valid point. He supposed it was something he really should've considered right away. But, as always he’d been caught up in paranoia steaming from the accident with the portal. This was nothing like the portal incident, however, and the two of them were far older and, hopefully, wiser. “You didn’t tell anyone about the portal though, and you trust people and know people who probably wouldn’t have said anything. You kept it to yourself. I just did the same thing with Bill.” 

Ford watched his brother supposedly hold back another sigh, taking his words into account and then slowly nodding, acknowledging the truth in his words.

“I guess I can understand, more or less.” Stanley muttered lowly, shifting in his seat. “Look… I don’t know about you, but I’m getting sick of all this...this sibling…  _ pettiness _ . I just want us to try, honestly, to get along without lies and secrets and other bullshit. I want... A sort of deal where we agree to just keep everything out on the table.”

Ford narrowed his eyes, “A deal?”

Stanley paused, appearing to realize how that probably sounded to Stanford after all the past deals he’d been tricked with. Yeah, Deal was a bad choice of words to use around Stanford. “A truce. Negotiation. Settlement.” He corrected.

Stanford calmed at that, letting out a small glad sigh before he ran a hand through his hair. Stanley wasn’t like Bill, sure he was a con man but he wasn’t about to trick him into something that was going to turn out horribly for him, at least not on purpose. “...Right, sorry. That sounds good. I- I would like that.” Stanford muttered softly before clearing his throat, attempting to ignore the brief stutter he had. Damnit, this was why he was why he was uncomfortable with talks like this, sure he would handle battling a kraken without losing his cool - as long as Bill wasn’t there purposely winding him up - but heart to heart conversations just had a way of getting under his skin. Because of this he was somewhat thankful Stanley seemed to have a far better grip of how to deal with such situations. Yeah, he wasn’t the best my any means, as he clearly got a little heated and could be rather selfish at times, but at least he was far better than Ford himself.

“So, where’s the irritating illuminati demon anyways? I didn’t hear any sarcastic comments so I’m assuming he’s not in your pocket.” Asked Stanley after a moment of silence, obviously seeking to prevent this from becoming too awkward.

“Last time I checked he was in my room. I was actually just going to check on him before we started, um, talking...” He sighed softly, not looking forward to another emotional talk with someone, especially someone who’d just likely throw insults and sarcastic remarks in his face. Not that talking with Bill was rather pleasant regardless. Stanley managed to give him a curt expression of pity before he relaxed back in his chair, “Well… you have fun with that then, Poindexter… Oh yeah! Also have a damn shower, you smell like something died.”

Ford gave a meek, weak chuckle in return, “Yeah… Shall do...” When a semi-awkward silence began settling between them Ford took it as the cue to leave, crossing the living room and heading upstairs.

As far as conversations went Ford believed that went rather well - at least when considering how badly it COULD have gone. It was obvious there was still a lot of unresolved tension between them but hopefully this truce would at least help resolve some of it. A part of him doubted their relationship would ever completely be like back when they were kids… ...But that was okay, as long as things were relatively okay.

It would at least be far better than any ‘relationship’ he was going to have with Bill, which he doubted would ever get past begrudging acceptance that they had to deal with each other. Which he was alright with; a monster like Bill didn’t really deserve anything else, not after the things Bill had done to him. Well… At least that's what his logical mind thought, anything else was just pathetic illogical feelings, wishing things had been different, that he could go back to feeling how he had when working with Bill;  _ special _ ,  _ wanted _ …

He shuddered at that, yeah, it was best not to think about that. Those weren’t pleasant memories.

He shook his head, willing himself to put those thoughts out of mind and instead focus on looking for Bill. After making it upstairs, he nudged his bedroom door open softly, peeking in and entering fully with a confused expression when he didn’t see the triangle at first. To be perfectly honest, he’d half expected to see him sitting on the bed, glaring at him.

The room was silent and he briefly panicked, worry filling him. Bill was gone? Again? This was becoming too much of a habit, almost! Like a mom with a child who kept constantly wandering away in the middle of a mall, he whipped his head around, feeling his heart start to thump fast in his chest, “Bill?”

A soft sound, almost akin to a whimper, sounded in the room and Ford didn’t know if it was more reassuring or nerving. Maybe Bill had fallen somewhere and hurt himself? Maybe another one of Bill's friends had come along and was lurking in the room, ready to jump out and attack him. That or Bill was trying to milk some pity out of him for earlier.

He groaned at that. Yeah, knowing Bill this was just some half-baked attempt to make him feel guilty about throwing the book at him - which, granted, he already felt slightly bad about, if not only because the look Bill had given him made him feel like he’d just punched a puppy… ...An evil jerk puppy who sorta deserved being punched. Yeah, this really didn’t feel like something he should feel bad about, but at least by saying sorry he would be able to get Bill to quit this obvious act.

He sighed, the panic from earlier fading as he went to his bed to sit down, calling into the empty air, "I'm sorry," in a vain attempt that it’d perhaps lure Bill out of his hiding spot. He waited. When nothing happened and he began feeling bored he started looking around, wanting to at least know if Bill was in the room or if he really was talking to no one. The first place he looked was the rather obvious hiding place under the bed, figuring maybe Bill had decided to be super unoriginal and hid under there.

What he found however was rather surprising.

Bill was sitting there under the bed, trying desperately to straighten out his crumpled top hat with his non broken arm - he wasn’t doing a very good at this either. That wasn’t what caught Stanford off guard however, no, Bill’s entire body was a pale blue and he looked ...genuinely sad? Bill could feel emotion? Or more importantly, Bill could just upset over something as stupid as his top hat?

Of course the moment the tiny demon noticed that Stanford had spotted him his entire body tensed up, his colour quickly changing from blue to an angry red as he quickly tried to get rid of any evidence of what he probably deemed a ‘pathetic display’.

“Stanford, tell me what THIS IS,” He hissed angrily as he pointed to his hat, looking like he might legit try to kill Stanford - something which undoubtedly would not go well due to the lack of power and broken arm - if Stanford said anything other than the right answer.

“It’s your hat but it's crumpled up, as far as I can see,” Stanford started simply, trying to hide the smirk that was trying to make its way onto his face. This was the last thing he expected to see and… ...Man, it was hard to fight the urge to indulge a little bit and turn the tables on Bill, push his buttons for a change. But as much as he wanted to, he knew he was better than than that; he wouldn’t do something that petty.

Either way, the slightly flustered, angry look he received from the three sided menace was amusing enough anyway.

“It’s  _ crumpled _ because  _ you threw a book at it! _ WHAT DID IT EVER DO TO YOU!” Bill’s tiny body shook with rage towards the large human. Ford rose a brow at the absolute fury the demon was displaying. If He could recall correctly the last time he’d seen Bill this mad, it’d be around the time Bill had first woken up in the jar after his complete and utter defeat, which, if he was remembering right… had been less than pleasant considering how the demon could manipulate the pitch of his voice still.

Why was this even a big thing for Bill anyway? It was just a stupid hat. He did know they could always make or buy a new one, right? Bill typically wasn’t one to get so upset over little things - yeah, he could be petty but he usually reserved outright rage for far more extreme things. He’d been expecting sassiness and rude comments about throwing a book at Bill, not blind rage over a tiny crumpled hat. Perhaps it had a sentimental value he wasn’t aware of?

While he didn’t care much about the hat - it was just a tacky fashion accessory to him after all - if that was the case then he could at least somewhat understand Bill’s distress. Though, as amusing as it was… It was probably something he should attempt to fix, if not only for the sake of being the bigger person - in more ways than one. He sighed softly, gently rubbing his temples before he muttered, “Right, I’m sorry, Bill…”

Unsurprisingly, this little apology didn’t seem to satisfy the upset triangle. In retaliation, he grabbed the closest thing to him under the bed (which just so happened to be a misplaced penny), and threw it at Ford. It made a light ‘tink’ sound as it hit the corner of Ford’s glasses, knocking them slightly off balance much to the demons obvious delight. Stanford exhaled sharply as he tried to control his temper, fixing the position of his glasses. He silently reminded himself the importance of keeping his thoughts mostly to himself in order to keep this conversation as short as possible - long conversations with Bill about anything always turned into arguments.

“Are you done? I mean, I was going to offer to help you fix the hat but...” He allowed himself to trail off then, eyes focusing on Bill to try and get a gauge on his reaction. It was about as satisfying as he’d imagined it would be. Bill’s eye had narrowed as he shot Ford a displeased look, the phrasing of Ford’s statement obviously sounding rather similar to the kinds of things Bill used to say while making deals with people. It had been intentional of course, despite how manipulative it made Stanford feel.

“....Fine, you wanna play it like that Sixer? Fine, fix my hat.” The demon hissed as he slowly pushed his hat towards Ford, allowing him to slowly reach down and take it. It was clear he didn’t like Stanford handling his hat, but it wasn’t like he had much of a choice if he wanted the hat to be returned to its former glory.

Ford handled the little fabric accessory gingerly, pressing it against the ground and straightening it out with his large thumbs, and then bringing it up to blow at the inside and get its cylindricity back. He brushed his thumbs around the rim to try and get out any leftover crinkles, feeling Bill’s large eye glaring into him - though he felt sure that if he were to glance up he’d see a hint of curiosity, observance, present in his gaze.

Ford managed to work out the majority of crickles out - save for a few permanent creases and a slight notch at the hat’s midpoint - and then held it out to Bill in offering. 

Rather rudely Bill snatched it out of his hand, eye quickly looking the thing over with moderate level of disappointment before he simply tried to put it back in its proper place atop his head. It fell off, whatever magic spell or thing of a similar nature having been broken the moment the hat was wacked off his head. Which sort of brought up the question how it had been floating in the first place, something which he would have sat down and tried to figure out had he deemed it important at all. Not that he wasn’t still curious.

Oh well, despite the slightly ruined non-floating hat, Bill at least seemed semi-pacified now compared to before. 

Ford still smirked at the begrudgingly grateful behavior, finding it slightly humorous considering how he’d grown used to just constant sarcasm and eccentric behaviour - among other less humane tendencies. “So… Do you want to come out from under the bed now?”

Bill glanced over at him, gaze becoming thin again, “Hmmmm, give me a moment to think it over…No, I think I prefer sitting where books can’t hit me, bud.”

Yeup, there was that bitterness Ford had previously been expecting. He sighed softly. Bill never was that quick to forgive, if he ever did forgive at all. While Stanford had never really wronged Bill in the past - except for the whole trying to kill him thing - he’d heard about others who had in the past and well… ...Yeah, he wasn’t a forgiving guy. “Bill, I’m sorry. You’re just- You pushed me too far!” He knew it was fair to blame Bill for at least part of the incident. Like, what did the demon think was going to happen when he started pushing Stanford's buttons? But hey, a part of it had also been Stanford's frustration at his own faults, so he supposed it wasn’t exactly black and white. The scoff Bill gave seemed to acknowledge this fact and Ford winced a little. 

He laid down on the ground, head resting on his hands under the bed before he went to say something. But then, it sort of clicked in his head that he was just letting himself get dragged into another potential argument here. God dammit.

“Right, ok, you stay under there then. Just be careful of Waddles, he might come here and try to eat you if you're on the floor.” He sighed lightly as he got up, lightly rubbing the bridge of his nose before he headed into the bathroom, intending to take a shower like Stanley had previously told him to. Once he left the room he heard the sounds of Bill trying to scramble up onto the bed, obviously having taken his warning to heart and now trying to ensure he wasn’t  finished off by some semi-adorable pig.

The thought of the pig running off with Bill in its mouth made him chuckle lightly as he locked the door behind him. As annoying as Bill could be at times, a part of him was glad he was still alive now due to it allowing for the amusing possibilities such as him and Waddles interacting. Along with the fact that, despite being something Stanford would never verbally admit, tiny Bill was at least a little cute.

Yeah, admitting that aloud with Bill there would only serve to give him more things to annoy Stanford with, so that wasn't happening, ever. Something he didn’t exactly fancy after all the stress he’d just been through.

Oh well, at least now he could just relax and take a warm shower. Which, while being a slight waste of time in his own personal opinion, was in fact rather pleasant.


End file.
